Sunrun (NASDAQ:RUN) and Spruce Power (NYSE:SPRU) Head to Head Review

Sunrun (NASDAQ:RUN) and Spruce Power (NYSE:SPRU) are both utilities companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings, profitability, risk and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Sunrun and Spruce Power, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Sunrun	2	8	12	0	2.45
Spruce Power	1	0	0	0	1.00

Sunrun presently has a consensus price target of $16.81, indicating a potential upside of 89.12%. Given Sunrun’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Sunrun is more favorable than Spruce Power.

Volatility & Risk

Sunrun has a beta of 2.37, meaning that its stock price is 137% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Spruce Power has a beta of 1.19, meaning that its stock price is 19% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Sunrun and Spruce Power’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Sunrun	11.59%	9.59%	1.77%
Spruce Power	-6.76%	-5.94%	-0.87%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Sunrun and Spruce Power”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Sunrun	$2.96 billion	0.72	$449.95 million	$1.48	6.01
Spruce Power	$111.81 million	0.30	-$26.03 million	($0.45)	-3.94

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

Insider & Institutional Ownership

91.7% of Sunrun shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 20.8% of Spruce Power shares are held by institutional investors. 3.5% of Sunrun shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 11.2% of Spruce Power shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Sunrun beats Spruce Power on 13 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Sunrun

Sunrun Inc. designs, develops, installs, sells, owns, and maintains residential solar energy systems in the United States. It also sells solar energy systems and products, such as panels and racking; and solar leads generated to customers. In addition, the company offers battery storage along with solar energy systems; and sells services to commercial developers through multi-family and new homes. Its primary customers are residential homeowners. The company markets and sells its products through direct-to-consumer approach across online, retail, mass media, digital media, canvassing, field marketing, and referral channels, as well as its partner network. Sunrun Inc. was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

About Spruce Power

Spruce Power Holding Corporation owns and operates distributed solar energy assets in the United States. The company provides subscription-based services for homeowners and businesses to own and maintain rooftop solar and battery storage. It offers its subscription-based services to approximately 75,000 customers. The company is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.