AWK stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
September 20th, 2019
4
American Water Works Company, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides water and wastewater services in the United States and Canada.
Should I buy AWK stock?
Even if you are a experienced or a novel trader, best trading results come from using an investing strategy that never leaves to random or subjective opinions when is the best moment to buy or sell stocks. Following a trading strategy helps to make decisions easier, quicker and with less hesitations. There are thousands of trading strategies for you to choose, but at Stocks2.com we prefer those that are simple but successful.Currently, American Water Works stock doesn't match any of these trading strategies, so our recommendation is not to buy.
| Buy setup | Elegible |
|---|---|
| New all-time high | No |
| New 52 week high | No |
| Price crossing up 200d MA | No |
| 100d MA crossing up 200d MA | No |
Is American Water Works stock a buy?
Everyday, hundreds of stock ratings are posted by financial analysts to indicate a particular stock's attractiveness.
At Stocks2.com, we detected 7 ratings published for AWK stock in the last 30 days.| Date | Analyst / Broker | Previous rating | Current rating |
| 2019-8-14 | Wells Fargo & Co | n/a | Market Perform |
| 2019-7-15 | Bank of America | Neutral | Underperform |
| 2019-6-10 | Wells Fargo & Co | n/a | Hold |
| 2019-2-21 | Wells Fargo & Co | Outperform | Outperform |
| 2019-2-21 | Janney Montgomery Scott | In-Line | Buy |
| 2019-2-21 | Bank of America | Neutral | Neutral |
| 2019-1-2 | Wells Fargo & Co | n/a | Buy |
AWK stock analysis
Daily outlook
Shares of American Water Works closed today at $122.83 and appreciated a slightly fine 0.37%.
American Water Works shares appreciated 0.37% to $122.83 today. AWK is retaking the upward trend marking a new rising bottom heading to break out over $129.89. Since last August when AWK stock price broke up the SMA50d line, it gained $7.94 (6.91%). On Sep 4th, AWK hit a new all time high, pushing higher than on Sep 3rd tops. Check different trading setups that use ATHs as triggers.
Weekly outlook
Shares of American Water Works ended this week at $122.83 and appreciated a slightly good 1.33%.
Price pattern shows an uptrend with two rising tops and bottoms, and now trading upwards to the $129.89 resistance. Not so far away is the last price record American Water Works marked early September. Since mid January when AWK stock price broke up the SMA20w line, it gained $33.42 (37.38%).
AWK stock price history
AWK IPO was on April 23rd, 2008 at $15.02 per share1. Since then, AWK stock surged a 717.80%, with a yearly average of 65.30%. If you had invested $1,000 in AWK stock in 2008, it would worth $7,178.00 today.
1: Adjusted price after possible price splits or reverse-splits.
AWK stock historical price chart
AWK stock reached all-time highs on Sep/4 with a price of $129.89.
AWK stock price target is $110.50
How much a stock will be priced tomorrow or next week is quite unpredictable However, many stock price predictions are published every day by banks, financial institutions and independent analysts. The accuracy of these stock price predictions is not very high, and you should not blindly believe and make decisions only based on what this ratings or price target predictions say. For the last month we found 4 price forecasts for American Water Works stock:| Date | Analyst / Broker | Action | Previous target | Current target | Diff |
| 2019-8-14 | Wells Fargo & Co | Raises Target | $122.00 | $128.00 | 4.9% |
| 2019-2-21 | Wells Fargo & Co | Raises Target | $101.00 | $109.00 | 7.9% |
| 2019-2-21 | Janney Montgomery Scott | Reiterates | n/a | $102.00 | - |
| 2019-2-21 | Bank of America | Reiterates | $92.00 | $103.00 | 12% |
| (in average) | $105.00 | $110.50 | 5.0% |
Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
Since last February, when American Water Works presented its last earnings report, it . Unfortunately, reported EPS is not yet available in our database.| Quarter | Reporting date | Estimated EPS | Actual EPS | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | - | n/a | 0.73 | n/a |
| 2017-Q3 | 2017-11-01 | 1.08 | 1.08 | 0.0% |
| 2017-Q4 | 2018-02-20 | 0.66 | 0.69 | 4.5% |
| 2018-Q1 | 2018-05-02 | 0.55 | 0.59 | 7.3% |
| 2018-Q2 | 2018-08-01 | 0.81 | 0.83 | 2.5% |
| 2018-Q3 | 2018-10-31 | 1.16 | 1.2 | 3.4% |
| 2018-Q4 | 2019-02-19 | 0.69 | 0.69 | 0.0% |
| 2019-Q1 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q2 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q3 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Annual financial results
Compared to 2017, last anual sales report draw a slightly fine growth of 2.47% to $3,440.00 M dollars. When comparing 2018 vs 2017, in line, profit margin (that is, the net income divided by revenues) inched a 3.79% to 16.48%.| Year | Sales | YoY | Income/(margin) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | $2,900 M | - | $369 M12.7% | - |
| 2014 | $3,011 M | 3.84% | $423 M14.1% | 14.63% |
| 2015 | $3,159 M | 4.90% | $476 M15.1% | 12.50% |
| 2016 | $3,302 M | 4.53% | $468 M14.2% | -1.68% |
| 2017 | $3,357 M | 1.67% | $426 M12.7% | -8.97% |
| 2018 | $3,440 M | 2.47% | $567 M16.5% | 33.10% |
Quarterly financial results
American Water Works posted $850.00 million in revenues for 2018-Q4, a -12.91% decline compared to previous quarter. Reported quarter earnings marked $112.00 million with a profit margin of 13.18%. Profit margin eased a -5.98% compared to previous quarter when profit margin was 19.16%. When comparing turnover to same quarter last year, American Water Works sales marked a fine gain and gained a 3.53%.| Quarter | Sales1 | QoQ2 | Income1/(margin) | QoQ2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | $844 M | - | $131 M15.5% | - |
| 2017-Q3 | $936 M | 10.90% | $203 M21.7% | 54.96% |
| 2017-Q4 | $821 M | -12.29% | $-1 M-0.1% | -100.49% |
| 2018-Q1 | $761 M | -7.31% | $106 M13.9% | -10,700.00% |
| 2018-Q2 | $853 M | 12.09% | $162 M19.0% | 52.83% |
| 2018-Q3 | $976 M | 14.42% | $187 M19.2% | 15.43% |
| 2018-Q4 | $850 M | -12.91% | $112 M13.2% | -40.11% |
| 2019-Q1 | $813 M | -4.35% | $113 M13.9% | 0.89% |
American Water Works ownership
When you are planning to invest in shares of a company, it's worth to review its ownership structure.Management staff in all public traded companies that hold equity is required to report every transaction to the SEC. For American Water Works, 0.23% of all outstanding shares are owned by its staff.
Bearish positions for AWK stock account 0.00%, no big difference from last month.
For a better understanding, the following table shows ownership data compared to other related stocks:
| AWK | ARTNA | AWR | CDZI | CTWS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $22.2 B | $308.9 M | $3.4 B | $343.6 M | $845.1 M |
| Total shares | 180.7 M | 8.4 M | 36.8 M | 27.0 M | 12.1 M |
| Float shares | 180.2 M | 8.3 M | 36.3 M | 23.7 M | 11.9 M |
| - Institutional holdings (%) | 88.1% | 47.7% | 74.4% | 82.1% | 52.5% |
| - Insider holdings (%) | 0.2% | 4.0% | 1.0% | 2.6% | 2.1% |
| Shares in short selling | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
AWK summary
| Friday, September 20th, 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $122.00 |
| Close | $122.83 |
| Day range | $121.65 - $123.61 |
| Previous close | $122.38 |
| Session gain | 0.37% |
| Average true range | $2.26 |
| 50d mov avg | $120.43 |
| 100d mov avg | $116.90 |
| 200d mov avg | $107.26 |
| Daily pattern | lb02a |
| Weekly pattern | lb02a |
American Water Works performance
Performance as an absolute value is never valid if it's not benchmarked against competitors or related stocks in the industry. We compared American Water Works against Artesian Resources, American States Water, Cadiz, Connecticut Water Service, California Water Service, Middlesex Water, SJW, Aqua America and The York Water in the following table:| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWK | 4.47% | 16.06% | 41.27% |
| ARTNAArtesian Resource... | 1.46% | -1.55% | 3.49% |
| AWRAmerican States W... | 23.66% | 30.22% | 56.00% |
| CDZICadiz | 19.51% | 33.12% | 19.07% |
| CTWSConnecticut Water... | 1.57% | 3.64% | 3.75% |
| CWTCalifornia Water ... | 8.77% | 2.31% | 33.70% |
| MSEXMiddlesex Water | 6.97% | 14.34% | 33.11% |
| SJW | 12.78% | 9.83% | 18.86% |
| WTRAqua America | 6.47% | 21.00% | 22.27% |
| YORWThe York Water | 16.05% | 22.69% | 39.31% |