Head to Head Analysis: Summit Midstream (NYSE:SMC) vs. Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB)

Summit Midstream (NYSE:SMC) and Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB) are both oils/energy companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, valuation, dividends, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

43.0% of Summit Midstream shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 86.4% of Williams Companies shares are owned by institutional investors. 5.3% of Summit Midstream shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.4% of Williams Companies shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk & Volatility

Summit Midstream has a beta of 2.37, meaning that its share price is 137% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Williams Companies has a beta of 1.06, meaning that its share price is 6% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Summit Midstream and Williams Companies, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Summit Midstream	0	0	0	0	0.00
Williams Companies	1	7	9	0	2.47

Williams Companies has a consensus price target of $53.00, indicating a potential downside of 5.37%. Given Williams Companies’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Williams Companies is more favorable than Summit Midstream.

Profitability

This table compares Summit Midstream and Williams Companies’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Summit Midstream	-23.01%	0.71%	0.22%
Williams Companies	27.36%	15.89%	4.45%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Summit Midstream and Williams Companies”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Summit Midstream	$449.92 million	0.89	-$38.95 million	($12.81)	-2.94
Williams Companies	$10.54 billion	6.48	$3.18 billion	$2.37	23.63

Williams Companies has higher revenue and earnings than Summit Midstream. Summit Midstream is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Williams Companies, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Williams Companies beats Summit Midstream on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Summit Midstream

Summit Midstream Corporation focuses on owning, developing, and operating midstream energy infrastructure assets primarily shale formations in the continental United States. It operates natural gas, crude oil, and produced water gathering systems in four unconventional resource basins, including the Williston Basin in North Dakota, which includes the Bakken and Three Forks shale formations; the Denver-Julesburg Basin that consists of the Niobrara and Codell shale formations in Colorado and Wyoming; the Fort Worth Basin in Texas, which comprises the Barnett Shale formation; and the Piceance Basin in Colorado, which includes the Mesaverde formation, as well as the emerging Mancos and Niobrara Shale formations. It serves natural gas and crude oil producers. Summit Midstream Corporation was founded in 2012 and is based in Houston, Texas.

About Williams Companies

The Williams Companies, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as an energy infrastructure company primarily in the United States. It operates through Transmission & Gulf of Mexico, Northeast G&P, West, and Gas & NGL Marketing Services segments. The Transmission & Gulf of Mexico segment comprises natural gas pipelines; Transco, Northwest pipeline, MountainWest, and related natural gas storage facilities; and natural gas gathering and processing, and crude oil production handling and transportation assets in the Gulf Coast region. The Northeast G&P segment engages in the midstream gathering, processing, and fractionation activities in the Marcellus Shale region primarily in Pennsylvania and New York, and the Utica Shale region of eastern Ohio. The West segment consists of gas gathering, processing, and treating operations in the Rocky Mountain region of Colorado and Wyoming, the Barnett Shale region of north-central Texas, the Eagle Ford Shale region of South Texas, the Haynesville Shale region of northwest Louisiana, the Mid-Continent region that includes the Anadarko and Permian basins, and the DJ Basin of Colorado; and operates natural gas liquid (NGL) fractionation and storage facilities in central Kansas near Conway. The Gas & NGL Marketing Services segment provides wholesale marketing, trading, storage, and transportation of natural gas for natural gas utilities, municipalities, power generators, and producers; asset management services; and transports and markets NGLs. The company owns and operates 33,000 miles of pipelines. The Williams Companies, Inc. was founded in 1908 and is headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma.