AWK stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
July 16th, 2019
3
American Water Works Company, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides water and wastewater services in the United States and Canada.
Should I buy AWK stock?
You can't be a successful trader if you don't follow a methodolgy or system that assist you in choosing companies and the correct market timing. Trading strategies are meant for helping you in the decision process of what stocks to pick and when is the best time to buy them. 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?
Banks and financial institutions publish stock ratings everyday.
At Stocks2.com, we detected 6 ratings published for AWK stock in the last 30 days.| Date | Analyst / Broker | Previous rating | Current rating |
| 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
American Water Works stayed constant -0.19% to $115.76 after topping to all time highs on Wednesday.
American Water Works stayed stable -0.19% today to $115.76 after reaching all time highs on Wednesday. On Wednesday, AWK hit a new all time high, pushing higher than on Jun/7 tops. Check different trading setups that use ATHs as triggers. Since price and SMA50d lines crossed up on April, AWK climbed $13.96 (13.71%).
Weekly outlook
American Water Works shares slightly fell -0.75% this week, ending at $115.76.
American Water Works stock is trading in the range of its last top and last bottom. Loosing would mean breaking the current uptrend. Breakdowns under last bottom are selling point signals for some trading strategies. Not so far away is the last all-time high American Water Works marked last week. Since early August 2018 when SMA20w and SMA40w crossed up, AWK price gained $29.43 per share (34.09%). Since price and SMA20w lines crossed up by mid January, AWK climbed $25.97 (28.92%).
AWK stock price history
AWK stock went public on April 23rd, 2008 with a price of $15.091. Since then, AWK stock grew a 667.10%, with a yearly average of 60.60%. If you had invested $1,000 in AWK stock in 2008, it would worth $6,671.00 today.
1: Adjusted price after possible price splits or reverse-splits.
AWK stock historical price chart
AWK stock reached all-time highs on Wednesday with a price of $119.30.
AWK stock price target is $104.70
Predicting the price evolution of a stock or any financial instrument in a reliable and repeatable way is probably impossible. However, financial institutions invest time and resources to provide the most accurated estimations to help investors to make their decisions. You should not follow the analysts' AWK stock price predictions in the hope that they will be met as they may be wrong and not met. We found 3 price forecasts for American Water Works stock published in the last 30 days:| Date | Analyst / Broker | Action | Previous target | Current target | Diff |
| 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) | $96.50 | $104.70 | 8.0% |
Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
Since February, when American Water Works presented its last earnings report, it . As soon as we get its actual EPS from the earnings report, we will update this review.| 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 good growth of 2.47% to $3,440.00 million USD. When comparing 2018 vs 2017, aligned with this, profit margin (that is, the net income divided by revenues) grew 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 sales to same quarter last year, American Water Works sales marked a decent increase and stepped up 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 a stock, it's worth to review its ownership structure.American Water Works shares owned by insiders (that is, founders, CEO, CTO, main executives or other management staff) currently counts a 0.23% of all shares.
Bearish positions for AWK stock account 0.00%, no big difference from last month.
For a better context understanding, the next table shows ownership data compared to other related companies:
| AWK | ARTNA | AWR | CDZI | CTWS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $20.9 B | $304.0 M | $2.8 B | $285.7 M | $841.5 M |
| Total shares | 180.5 M | 8.4 M | 36.8 M | 26.9 M | 12.1 M |
| Float shares | 180.1 M | 8.3 M | 36.3 M | 22.3 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
| Tuesday, July 16th, 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $115.47 |
| Close | $115.76 |
| Day range | $114.28 - $116.30 |
| Previous close | $115.98 |
| Session gain | -0.19% |
| Average true range | $1.75 |
| 50d mov avg | $114.43 |
| 100d mov avg | $109.12 |
| 200d mov avg | $100.16 |
| Daily pattern | |
| Weekly pattern | lt06a |
American Water Works performance
To measure stock performance is always good to benchmark with competitors or related stocks. We selected Artesian Resources, American States Water, Cadiz, Connecticut Water Service, California Water Service, Middlesex Water, SJW, Aqua America and The York Water as the bechmarking frame for American Water Works stock.| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWK | 11.08% | 26.18% | 34.86% |
| ARTNAArtesian Resource... | 3.31% | 5.84% | -2.03% |
| AWRAmerican States W... | 9.17% | 15.93% | 27.00% |
| CDZICadiz | 7.93% | 5.15% | -19.62% |
| CTWSConnecticut Water... | 2.45% | 7.09% | 11.13% |
| CWTCalifornia Water ... | 1.60% | 8.28% | 26.94% |
| MSEXMiddlesex Water | 9.28% | 7.30% | 32.33% |
| SJW | 2.96% | 8.78% | -3.33% |
| WTRAqua America | 11.61% | 22.42% | 15.98% |
| YORWThe York Water | 8.10% | 11.95% | 13.27% |