Comparing Oklo (NYSE:OKLO) & AES (NYSE:AES)

AES (NYSE:AES) and Oklo (NYSE:OKLO) are both utilities companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, dividends, profitability, earnings, analyst recommendations, risk and valuation.

Profitability

This table compares AES and Oklo’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
AES	14.30%	20.69%	3.62%
Oklo	N/A	-7.11%	-6.92%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

93.1% of AES shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 85.0% of Oklo shares are held by institutional investors. 0.8% of AES shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 12.7% of Oklo shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Risk & Volatility

AES has a beta of 0.97, indicating that its share price is 3% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Oklo has a beta of 1.2, indicating that its share price is 20% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for AES and Oklo, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
AES	0	7	0	0	2.00
Oklo	1	9	12	1	2.57

AES presently has a consensus target price of $15.83, suggesting a potential upside of 5.80%. Oklo has a consensus target price of $78.47, suggesting a potential upside of 191.71%. Given Oklo’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Oklo is more favorable than AES.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares AES and Oklo”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
AES	$12.23 billion	0.87	$910.00 million	$2.62	5.71
Oklo	$1.21 million	4,135.44	-$105.66 million	($0.94)	-28.62

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

Summary

AES beats Oklo on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About AES

The AES Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a diversified power generation and utility company in the United States and internationally. The company owns and/or operates power plants to generate and sell power to customers, such as utilities, industrial users, and other intermediaries; owns and/or operates utilities to generate or purchase, distribute, transmit, and sell electricity to end-user customers in the residential, commercial, industrial, and governmental sectors; and generates and sells electricity on the wholesale market. It uses various fuels and technologies to generate electricity, such as coal, gas, hydro, wind, solar, and biomass, as well as renewables comprising energy storage and landfill gas. The company owns and/or operates a generation portfolio of approximately 34,596 megawatts and distributes power to 2.6 million customers. The company was formerly known as Applied Energy Services, Inc. and changed its name to The AES Corporation in April 2000. The AES Corporation was incorporated in 1981 and is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia.

About Oklo

Oklo Inc. designs and develops fission power plants to provide reliable and commercial-scale energy to customers in the United States. It also provides used nuclear fuel recycling services. The company was founded in 2013 and is based in Santa Clara, California.