Head-To-Head Review: Nextracker (NASDAQ:NXT) & JinkoSolar (NYSE:JKS)

JinkoSolar (NYSE:JKS) and Nextracker (NASDAQ:NXT) are both energy companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, valuation, risk, institutional ownership, earnings, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for JinkoSolar and Nextracker, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
JinkoSolar	5	1	1	0	1.43
Nextracker	0	10	16	1	2.67

JinkoSolar presently has a consensus target price of $28.99, suggesting a potential upside of 14.53%. Nextracker has a consensus target price of $94.05, suggesting a potential downside of 9.31%. Given JinkoSolar’s higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe JinkoSolar is more favorable than Nextracker.

Volatility & Risk

JinkoSolar has a beta of 0.44, meaning that its share price is 56% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Nextracker has a beta of 2.27, meaning that its share price is 127% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares JinkoSolar and Nextracker”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
JinkoSolar	$83.06 billion	0.02	$7.47 million	($5.02)	-5.04
Nextracker	$3.37 billion	4.55	$509.17 million	$3.85	26.94

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

Profitability

This table compares JinkoSolar and Nextracker’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
JinkoSolar	-2.23%	-2.95%	-0.76%
Nextracker	17.08%	35.05%	18.13%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

35.8% of JinkoSolar shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 67.4% of Nextracker shares are owned by institutional investors. 19.8% of JinkoSolar shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.6% of Nextracker shares are owned 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.

Summary

Nextracker beats JinkoSolar on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About JinkoSolar

JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the design, development, production, and marketing of photovoltaic products. The company offers solar modules, silicon wafers, solar cells, recovered silicon materials, and silicon ingots. It also provides solar system integration services; solar power generation and solar system EPC services; and energy storage system, as well as undertakes solar power projects. The company sells its products to distributors, project developers, system integrators, and manufacturers of solar power products under the JinkoSolar brand. As of December 31, 2023, it had an integrated annual capacity of 85 gigawatts (GW) for mono wafers; 90 GW for solar cells; and 110 GW for solar modules. It operates in China, the United States, Mexico, Australia, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Jordan, Vietnam, Egypt, Spain, Germany, and internationally. JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd. was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Shangrao, the People's Republic of China.

About Nextracker

Nextracker Inc., an energy solutions company, provides solar tracker 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. was formerly a subsidiary of Flex Ltd.