How to Buy Essential Utilities Stock
Essential Utilities Inc
Essential Utilities, Inc. , through its subsidiaries, operates regulated utilities that provide water or wastewater services in the United States.
Essential Utilities stock last closed at $42.80, up 0.56% from the previous day, and has decreased 12.22% in one year. It has underperformed other stocks in the Utilities - Regulated Water industry by 0.06 percentage points. Essential Utilities stock is currently +11.17% from its 52-week low of $38.50, and -18.66% from its 52-week high of $52.62.
As of Mar 20, 2023, there are 264.14M WTRG shares outstanding. The market cap of WTRG is $11.31B. In the last 24 hours, 1.55M WTRG shares were traded.
How to Buy Essential Utilities Stock
Wondering how to invest in Essential Utilities stock? Here's how.
- Decide where to buy Essential Utilities stock: You need to pick a stock brokerage, but don't worry - we've researched dozens of online stock brokerages and apps to help you choose where to buy Essential Utilities stock.
- Sign up for a brokerage account: Sign up for 0% fee trading with the highest-rated brokerage we've identified.
- Deposit money your brokerage account: Pick your payment method and add your info.
- Evaluate Essential Utilities stock: The Essential Utilities ticker symbol is WTRG. Is Essential Utilities stock a good investment? Should you buy shares of WTRG? How do WTRG's underlying business fundamentals look? Do top analysts think Essential Utilities is a good buy? Why has WTRG's stock price moved recently? (Hint: Our stock market analysis tools can help you evaluate if WTRG is a good stock to buy).
- Place your WTRG buy order: Decide if you will purchase WTRG shares at the current market price or use a limit order to buy WTRG stock at a given price.
- Watch your WTRG investment: Create a watchlist to monitor your investment in Essential Utilities stock.
Step 1: Decide where to buy Essential Utilities stock
You will need an online brokerage account to access the NYSE market and buy WTRG shares.
Our preferred brokerage: eToro
Based on our research, eToro is the best online stock brokerage. eToro gives you:
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Get $10 towards your share purchase by creating an account with eToro today.
Open eToro AccountStep 2: Sign up for a brokerage account
Now that you've chosen the best brokerage, it's time to fill out some personal information so you are able to buy WTRG today.
How to Open a New Brokerage Account on eToro
- Click here to get started.
- Enter your personal data to start your new brokerage account.
- Submit your details by pressing the "Create Account" button.
Step 3: Deposit money your brokerage account
Now that you have created your account on the best stock app, your next step is to transfer the money for your investment:
Check out the walkthrough below to see the process of depositing funds into your new brokerage account.
Step 4: Evaluate Essential Utilities stock
After you have figured out the best place to buy Essential Utilities stock, it's important to evaluate their stock prior to buying, so you can understand the risk and opportunity.
Essential Utilities quick stats
Essential Utilities Due Diligence Checks
WallStreetZen was built to help part-time investors do better fundamental analysis in less time.
You can see all of the due diligence checks on WTRG's stock page.
Is WTRG stock overvalued?
You can use many financial metrics, analyses, models, and charts to gauge WTRG's fair value.
Using relative valuations measures:
- WTRG may be undervalued based on its P/E ratio of 24.18x, relative to Utilities - Regulated Water industry P/E ratio of 30.03x
- WTRG could be undervalued based on its P/B ratio of 2.1x, relative to Utilities - Regulated Water industry P/B ratio of 2.45x
- WTRG could be overvalued based on its PEG ratio of 4.06x
You can do additional valuation research on WTRG's stock here.
WTRG Financials at a glance
Positive Financial Indicators:
- Total WTRG debt is lower than 5 years ago, relative to shareholder equity.
Negative Financial Indicators:
- There are more short-term liabilities than short-term assets on the WTRG balance sheet.
- WTRG profit margin has gone down from 23% to 20.3% in the past year.
- WTRG has cash burn of 578267000. It does not have sufficient cash and short-term investments to cover this.
- There are more long-term liabilities than short-term assets on the WTRG balance sheet.
- WTRG has $11.40M in cash and short term investments. This is not enough to cover its annual cash burn of $578.27M.
- WTRG has a relatively high debt to equity ratio of 1.92.
Is WTRG stock a Buy, Hold, or Sell, according to Wall Street analysts?
Out of 7 Wall Street analysts who track WTRG, the consensus analyst rating on Essential Utilities is a Strong Buy
Please keep in mind that analyst forecasts are not stock recommendations, nor are they investment advice.
Latest WTRG Analyst Forecasts
Shelby Tucker, a top 14% analyst from RBC Capital reiterates WTRG with a buy rating and maintains their WTRG price target from $54.00 to $54.00, on Mar 16, 2023.
Jonathan Reeder, a top 24% analyst from Wells Fargo maintains WTRG with a strong buy rating and lowers their WTRG price target from $53.00 to $52.00, on Feb 28, 2023.
Gregg Orrill, a top 32% analyst from UBS upgrades WTRG to a strong buy rating and announces their WTRG price target of $55.00, on Feb 6, 2023.
Joseph Parkhill, a top 30% analyst from UBS maintains WTRG with a hold rating and raises their WTRG price target from $45.00 to $52.00, on Nov 29, 2022.
Ryan Greenwald, an analyst from Bank of America downgrades WTRG to a hold rating and announces their WTRG price target of $52.00, on Sep 9, 2022.
You can dig deeper into what analysts are forecasting on the Essential Utilities stock forecast page.
Metrics for Advanced WTRG Traders
WTRG Growth Metrics
Last year, WTRG earnings were $465.24M. Over the last 5 year, WTRG's earnings have grown by 5.57% per year. This was slower than the Utilities - Regulated Water industry average of 5.83%.
Last year, WTRG revenue was $2.29B. During the past five year, WTRG's revenue has grown by 23.1% per year. This was faster than the Utilities - Regulated Water industry average of 7.61%.
Find out more about WTRG's earnings and revenue performance here.
Latest Insiders Trades at WTRG
In the past year, executives and large shareholders at WTRG have sold more shares than they have bought.
Chris Franklin, Chief Executive Officer of WTRG, was the latest WTRG insider to buy. They bought $1,515,871.50 worth of WTRG shares on Mar 8, 2023.
Get more info about who owns WTRG shares here.
Does WTRG provide a stable income stream?
Essential Utilities pays a dividend of 3.31%, compared to the Utilities - Regulated Water industry's average dividend yield of 2.21%. If you owned $1,000 of WTRG stock, you would have received $33.09 last year.
Essential Utilities dividend payments have consistently grown over the past decade and have remained stable.
Find more analysis about Essential Utilities dividend yield and history here.
What others are saying about WTRG
One of the reasons eToro is our favorite brokerage is because of its social trading community.
Click below to see what other traders have to say.
Step 5: Place your WTRG buy order
There are two main order types:
- Market order: A market order is an order to buy or sell a security at the best price on the market.
Market orders are mostly fine. - Limit order: A limit order lets you buy or sell a security at a specific price (or better).
If you want to be sure you're buying or selling at a given dollar amount, place a limit order.
Hit the Open button and your broker will execute the order.
If you want additional help with buying stocks on eToro, click the helpful video below:
Step 6: Watch your WTRG investment
Now that you own some shares in WTRG, you'll want to stay up-to-date on your new stock purchase.
Put WTRG on a watchlist to keep track of your WTRG stock.
WTRG Feed
How to Buy Stock in Essential Utilities
To reiterate, here are the 6 steps for buying Essential Utilities stock:
- Decide where to buy Essential Utilities stock
- Sign up for a brokerage account
- Deposit money your brokerage account
- Evaluate Essential Utilities stock
- Place your WTRG buy order
- Watch your WTRG investment
If you are looking for a brokerage, eToro is our recommended venue.
Get Started with eToro TodayIf you want to watch your new investment in Essential Utilities, create a watchlist on WallStreetZen today.
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