Essential Utilities (WTRG)

• Market cap: $9.98B
• 1 day: 0.50%
• 5 days: -6.12%
• 1 month: -6.63%
• 3 months: -4.32%
• 6 months: -1.76%
• Year to date: -3.86%
• 1 year: -0.85%
• 5 years: -32.33%
• 10 years: -32.33%
• Sector: Utilities
• Industry: Water Supply

About: Essential Utilities is a Pennsylvania-based holding company for us water, wastewater, and natural gas distribution utilities. The company's water business serves 3 million people in eight states. Nearly three fourths of its water earnings come from Pennsylvania, primarily suburban Philadelphia. Its Peoples subsidiary serves more than 740,000 gas distribution customers in Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Essential exited its noncore competitive water and energy services businesses.

Employees: 3,258

Fund manager confidence

Based on 2024 Q3 regulatory filings by fund managers ($100M+ AUM)

43% more first-time investments, than exits

New positions opened: 73 | Existing positions closed: 51

14% more repeat investments, than reductions

Existing positions increased: 227 | Existing positions reduced: 199

4% more funds holding

Funds holding: 594 [Q2] → 616 (+22) [Q3]

2% less capital invested

Capital invested by funds: $8.13B [Q2] → $7.97B (-$156M) [Q3]

3.56% less ownership

Funds ownership: 79.62% [Q2] → 76.06% (-3.56%) [Q3]

11% less call options, than puts

Call options by funds: $3.11M | Put options by funds: $3.47M

Research analyst outlook

3 Wall Street Analysts provided 1 year price targets over the past 3 months

• Low target: $41 13% upside
• Avg. target: $43 19% upside
• High target: $46 27% upside

3 analyst ratings

• positive: 2 67%
• neutral: 1 33%
• negative: 0 0%

Jefferies Julien Dumoulin-Smith 54% 1-year accuracy 73 / 135 met price target	13% upside $41	Hold Downgraded	7 Nov 2024
Baird Ben Kallo 53% 1-year accuracy 21 / 40 met price target	27% upside $46	Outperform Maintained	6 Nov 2024
Wells Fargo Jonathan Reeder 36% 1-year accuracy 4 / 11 met price target	18% upside $43	Overweight Maintained	5 Nov 2024