Latest revenue
$861.8M
as of 2026-03-31
Latest net income
$224.4M
as of 2026-03-31
Net margin
26.0%
as of 2026-03-31
Community sentiment
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WTRG vs S&P 500 · rebased to 100
Live market
delayed ≤15 min- Market cap
- $10.64B
- Enterprise value
- $18.96B
- P/E (trailing)
- 17.3×
- Forward P/E
- —
- P/B
- 1.54×
- Dividend yield
- 3.6%
- 52-wk high
- $42.37
- 52-wk low
- $36.11
- Beta
- —
- Shares out
- 283.6M
What this company does
The Company Essential Utilities, Inc., referred to as “Essential Utilities”, “Essential”, the “Company”, “we”, “us”, or “our”, a Pennsylvania corporation, is the holding company for regulated utilities providing water, wastewater, or natural gas services to an estimated 5.5 million people in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, Illinois, North Carolina, New Jersey, Indiana, Virginia, and Kentucky under the Aqua and Peoples brands. One of our largest operating subsidiaries, Aqua Pennsylvania, Inc., or Aqua Pennsylvania, accounted for approximately 57% of operating revenues and approximately 72% of income for our Regulated Water segment in 2025. As of December 31, 2025, Aqua Pennsylvania provided water…
AI summary unavailable — showing raw filing excerpt
Generated from WTRG's filing dated 2026-02-26
Key risks
In addition to the other information included in this Annual Report, the following factors should be considered in evaluating our business and future prospects. Any of the following risks, either alone or taken together, could materially harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations. If one or more of these or other risks or uncertainties materialize, or if our underlying assumptions prove to be incorrect, our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be materially harmed. Risk Factor Summary Our business is subject to many risks and uncertainties. The following are the types of forward-looking statements we make throughout this Annual Report,…
AI summary unavailable — showing raw filing excerpt
Generated from WTRG's filing dated 2026-02-26
ActaClear Score
Computed from 5 years of SEC fundamentals + latest market data, ranked within Water Supply (17 peers). 10 = best in industry, 5 = median, 0 = worst. Refreshed Jun 10, 2026.
Fair value · DCF
Methodology + caveats (click to expand)
Method. 10-year forecast of free cash flow, discounted at the company's WACC, with a Gordon-growth terminal at year 10. FCF is proxied by last fiscal-year net income (proper FCF needs CFO − CapEx by year, which we don't store yet). Beta defaults to 1.0 when not reported.
Why DCF is fragile. Treat the output as a thinking aid, not a verdict. Honest weaknesses of any DCF:
- Growth is the dominant assumption. No one can foresee 10 years of growth — small changes in the slider can double or halve fair value. The reverse-DCF readout above tells you what the market is implicitly assuming; ask yourself whether that's realistic before trusting either number.
- Terminal value dominates. In most DCFs, 60-80% of the answer comes from the terminal-value calculation — i.e., everything AFTER year 10. A 0.5pp change in terminal growth, or in WACC, can swing fair value by 20-30%.
- WACC is itself a guess. We use a textbook CAPM cost of equity (Rf 4.3%, MRP 5.5%, β from the quote) plus a 6% pretax cost of debt — none of these are the company's actual marginal financing cost.
- No moat / disruption modelling. The model assumes the company keeps earning whatever it earns today, compounding cleanly. Competitive shifts, regulatory action, and technology disruption can invalidate the forecast overnight.
- Net income ≠ free cash flow. For capex-heavy names (semis, telcos) net income overstates distributable cash. For low-capex names (software) it understates. Both reduce the precision of the FV figure.
- Reflexivity. A high stock price often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy via better hiring, financing, and customer trust. DCF can't see this.
Take the DCF, the reverse-DCF implied growth, the historical multiples, and the community sentiment together. When they agree, conviction. When they disagree, the disagreement is the most informative thing on the page.
Historical multiples
How does WTRG's current valuation compare to its own past?
P/E uses year-end weekly close ÷ (net income ÷ shares outstanding today). Held shares constant at today's count, which understates the per-share earnings improvement from buybacks over the period. PEG uses 5y revenue CAGR as a proxy for EPS growth — close, but not identical (margin expansion or dilution can drive a wedge). Best read as a comparator across companies and industries, not as a precise replica of historical multiples.