Reviewing Chesapeake Energy (EXE) and Its Peers

Chesapeake Energy (NASDAQ:EXE) is one of 286 publicly-traded companies in the “Crude petroleum & natural gas” industry, but how does it contrast to its competitors? We will compare Chesapeake Energy to similar businesses based on the strength of its risk, dividends, earnings, institutional ownership, valuation, analyst recommendations and profitability.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Chesapeake Energy and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Chesapeake Energy	0	2	3	1	2.83
Chesapeake Energy Competitors	2154	11607	16196	624	2.50

Chesapeake Energy presently has a consensus price target of $99.20, suggesting a potential upside of 7.41%. As a group, “Crude petroleum & natural gas” companies have a potential upside of 22.26%. Given Chesapeake Energy’s competitors higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Chesapeake Energy has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Profitability

This table compares Chesapeake Energy and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Chesapeake Energy	6.07%	2.74%	2.08%
Chesapeake Energy Competitors	-3.42%	7.39%	6.67%

Risk and Volatility

Chesapeake Energy has a beta of 0.46, suggesting that its stock price is 54% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Chesapeake Energy’s competitors have a beta of -13.38, suggesting that their average stock price is 1,438% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Chesapeake Energy pays an annual dividend of $2.30 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.5%. Chesapeake Energy pays out 142.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. As a group, “Crude petroleum & natural gas” companies pay a dividend yield of 10.6% and pay out 119.2% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Chesapeake Energy lags its competitors as a dividend stock, given its lower dividend yield and higher payout ratio.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

97.9% of Chesapeake Energy shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 53.9% of shares of all “Crude petroleum & natural gas” companies are held by institutional investors. 0.2% of Chesapeake Energy shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 9.1% of shares of all “Crude petroleum & natural gas” companies are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Chesapeake Energy and its competitors revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Chesapeake Energy	$8.72 billion	$2.42 billion	57.01
Chesapeake Energy Competitors	$12.21 billion	$1.07 billion	-605.40

Chesapeake Energy’s competitors have higher revenue, but lower earnings than Chesapeake Energy. Chesapeake Energy is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Summary

Chesapeake Energy competitors beat Chesapeake Energy on 8 of the 15 factors compared.

About Chesapeake Energy

Expand Energy Corporation is an independent natural gas producer principally in the United States. Expand Energy Corporation, formerly known as Chesapeake Energy Corporation, is based in OKLAHOMA CITY.