Critical Comparison: Nextpower (NASDAQ:NXT) and Maxeon Solar Technologies (NASDAQ:MAXN)

Maxeon Solar Technologies (NASDAQ:MAXN) and Nextpower (NASDAQ:NXT) are both energy companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, institutional ownership, risk and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings for Maxeon Solar Technologies and Nextpower, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Maxeon Solar Technologies	1	0	0	0	1.00
Nextpower	0	6	19	1	2.81

Nextpower has a consensus target price of $111.49, indicating a potential downside of 0.90%. Given Nextpower’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Nextpower is more favorable than Maxeon Solar Technologies.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Maxeon Solar Technologies and Nextpower”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Maxeon Solar Technologies	$509.05 million	0.05	-$614.30 million	($163.07)	-0.01
Nextpower	$2.96 billion	5.65	$509.17 million	$3.91	28.77

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

Insider & Institutional Ownership

47.7% of Maxeon Solar Technologies shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 67.4% of Nextpower shares are held by institutional investors. 0.6% of Nextpower shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Maxeon Solar Technologies and Nextpower’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Maxeon Solar Technologies	N/A	N/A	N/A
Nextpower	16.43%	32.01%	17.25%

Risk and Volatility

Maxeon Solar Technologies has a beta of 1.13, meaning that its share price is 13% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Nextpower has a beta of 2.41, meaning that its share price is 141% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Nextpower beats Maxeon Solar Technologies on 15 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Maxeon Solar Technologies

Maxeon Solar Technologies, Ltd. designs, manufactures, markets, and sells solar panels and related solar system components worldwide. The company provides interdigitated back contact and shingled solar cells and panels under the SunPower brand. It offers its products to dealers, project developers, system integrators, distributors, resellers, and residential and small-scale commercial customers. The company was incorporated in 2019 and is headquartered in Singapore.

About Nextpower

Nextpower, formerly known as Nextracker, an energy solutions company, provides solar trackers and software solutions for utility-scale and distributed generation solar projects in the United States and internationally. The company offers tracking solutions, which includes NX Horizon, a solar tracking solution; and NX Horizon-XTR, a terrain-following tracker designed to expand the addressable market for trackers on sites with sloped, uneven, and challenging terrain. It also provides TrueCapture, a self-adjusting tracker control system, which boosts solar power plant production by optimizing the position of individual tracker row in response to site features, such as varying topography and changing weather conditions; and NX Navigator, that assists solar power plant owners and operators in monitoring, controlling, and protecting their solar projects. The company was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Fremont, California. As of March 31, 2024 Nextracker Inc. (Nextpower) was formerly a subsidiary of Flex Ltd.