Reviewing Chesapeake Energy (EXE) & Its Competitors

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

Volatility and Risk

Chesapeake Energy has a beta of 0.46, meaning that its share price is 54% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Chesapeake Energy’s peers have a beta of -14.09, meaning that their average share price is 1,509% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Chesapeake Energy and its peers, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Chesapeake Energy	0	2	4	1	2.86
Chesapeake Energy Competitors	2168	11679	16248	632	2.50

Chesapeake Energy presently has a consensus target price of $102.00, indicating a potential upside of 2.58%. As a group, “Crude petroleum & natural gas” companies have a potential upside of 18.01%. Given Chesapeake Energy’s peers higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Chesapeake Energy has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Dividends

Chesapeake Energy pays an annual dividend of $2.30 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.3%. 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 10.4% and pay out 117.0% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Chesapeake Energy lags its peers as a dividend stock, given its lower dividend yield and higher payout ratio.

Profitability

This table compares Chesapeake Energy and its peers’ 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	-2.94%	2.64%	6.54%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

97.9% of Chesapeake Energy shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 53.3% of shares of all “Crude petroleum & natural gas” companies are held by institutional investors. 58.0% of Chesapeake Energy shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 9.9% of shares of all “Crude petroleum & natural gas” companies are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation & Earnings

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

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Chesapeake Energy	$4.03 billion	$2.42 billion	61.38
Chesapeake Energy Competitors	$12.37 billion	$1.07 billion	17.23

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

Summary

Chesapeake Energy beats its peers on 10 of the 15 factors compared.

Chesapeake Energy Company Profile

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.