Contrasting Bloom Energy (BE) and The Competition

Bloom Energy (NYSE:BE) is one of 21 publicly-traded companies in the “Electrical industrial apparatus” industry, but how does it contrast to its competitors? We will compare Bloom Energy to similar businesses based on the strength of its risk, profitability, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, valuation, dividends and earnings.

Volatility and Risk

Bloom Energy has a beta of 3.3, meaning that its stock price is 230% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Bloom Energy’s competitors have a beta of 1.46, meaning that their average stock price is 46% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for Bloom Energy and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Bloom Energy	1	11	8	1	2.43
Bloom Energy Competitors	92	598	839	35	2.52

Bloom Energy presently has a consensus price target of $25.06, suggesting a potential upside of 23.91%. As a group, “Electrical industrial apparatus” companies have a potential upside of 17.47%. Given Bloom Energy’s higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Bloom Energy is more favorable than its competitors.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Bloom Energy	-10.29%	-20.32%	-3.94%
Bloom Energy Competitors	-211.08%	-93.75%	-17.25%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

77.0% of Bloom Energy shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 53.1% of shares of all “Electrical industrial apparatus” companies are owned by institutional investors. 8.8% of Bloom Energy shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 10.7% of shares of all “Electrical industrial apparatus” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Bloom Energy and its competitors revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Bloom Energy	$1.47 billion	-$302.12 million	-101.10
Bloom Energy Competitors	$534.72 million	-$136.01 million	-1.96

Bloom Energy has higher revenue, but lower earnings than its competitors. Bloom Energy is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Summary

Bloom Energy beats its competitors on 8 of the 13 factors compared.

About Bloom Energy

Bloom Energy Corporation designs, manufactures, sells, and installs solid-oxide fuel cell systems for on-site power generation in the United States and internationally. The company offers Bloom Energy Server, a solid oxide technology that converts fuel, such as natural gas, biogas, hydrogen, or a blend of these fuels into electricity through an electrochemical process without combustion. It sells its products through direct and indirect sales channels to utilities, data centers, agriculture, retail, hospitals, higher education, biotech, and manufacturing industries. The company was formerly known as Ion America Corp. and changed its name to Bloom Energy Corporation in 2006. Bloom Energy Corporation was incorporated in 2001 and is headquartered in San Jose, California.