How to buy California Water Service Group stock | $50.84

California Water Service Group is an utilities-regulated water business based in the US. California Water Service Group shares (CWT) are listed on the NYSE and all prices are listed in US Dollars. California Water Service Group employs 1,224 staff and has a trailing 12-month revenue of around USD$782 million.

How to buy shares in California Water Service Group

1. Compare share trading platforms. If you're a beginner, look for a platform with low commissions, expert ratings and investment tools to track your portfolio. Narrow down top brands with our comparison table.
2. Open and fund your brokerage account. Complete an application with your personal and financial details, like your ID and bank information. Fund your account with a bank transfer, credit card or debit card.
3. Search for California Water Service Group. Find the stock by name or ticker symbol: CWT. Research its history to confirm it's a solid investment against your financial goals.
4. Purchase now or later. Buy today with a market order or use a limit order to delay your purchase until California Water Service Group reaches your desired price. To spread out your purchase, look into dollar-cost averaging, which smooths out buying at consistent intervals and amounts.
5. Decide on how many to buy. At last close price of USD$50.84, weigh your budget against a diversified portfolio that can minimize risk through the market's ups and downs. You may be able to buy a fractional share of California Water Service Group, depending on your broker.
6. Check in on your investment. Congratulations, you own a part of California Water Service Group. Optimize your portfolio by tracking how your stock — and even the business — performs with an eye on the long term. You may be eligible for dividends and shareholder voting rights on directors and management that can affect your stock.

California Water Service Group share price

Use our graph to track the performance of CWT stocks over time.

California Water Service Group shares at a glance

• Key figures

Information last updated 2020-12-27.

Latest market close	USD$50.84
52-week range	USD$39.192 - USD$56.5681
50-day moving average	USD$51.4533
200-day moving average	USD$47.5481
Wall St. target price	USD$50
PE ratio	27.9884
Dividend yield	USD$0.85 (1.6%)
Earnings per share (TTM)	USD$1.894

Buy California Water Service Group shares from these brokerages

Compare special offers, low fees and a wide range of types of investments among top trading platforms.

Is it a good time to buy California Water Service Group stock?

The technical analysis gauge below displays real-time ratings for the timeframes you select. This is not a recommendation, however. It represents a technical analysis based on the most popular technical indicators: Moving Averages, Oscillators and Pivots. Finder might not concur and takes no responsibility.

Technical Analysis of California Water Service Group by TradingView

This chart is not advice or a guarantee of success. Rather, it gauges the real-time recommendations of three popular technical indicators: moving averages, oscillators and pivots. Finder is not responsible for how your stock performs.

California Water Service Group price performance over time

Historical closes compared with the close of $50.84 from 2020-12-09

1 week (2021-01-15)	-6.77%
1 month (2020-12-23)	-3.60%
3 months (2020-10-22)	6.92%
6 months (2020-07-22)	1.64%

1 year (2020-01-22)	-4.13%
2 years (2019-01-22)	8.82%
3 years (2018-01-22)	15.81%
5 years (2016-01-22)	112.90%

Is California Water Service Group under- or over-valued?

Valuing California Water Service Group stock is incredibly difficult, and any metric has to be viewed as part of a bigger picture of California Water Service Group's overall performance. However, analysts commonly use some key metrics to help gauge the value of a stock.

California Water Service Group's P/E ratio

California Water Service Group's current share price divided by its per-share earnings (EPS) over a 12-month period gives a "trailing price/earnings ratio" of roughly 28x. In other words, California Water Service Group shares trade at around 28x recent earnings.

That's comparable to, say, the trailing 12-month P/E ratio for the NASDAQ 100 at the end of 2019 (27.29).

California Water Service Group's PEG ratio

California Water Service Group's "price/earnings-to-growth ratio" can be calculated by dividing its P/E ratio by its growth – to give 2.7043. A low ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer better value, while a higher ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer worse value.

The PEG ratio provides a broader view than just the P/E ratio, as it gives more insight into California Water Service Group's future profitability. By accounting for growth, it could also help you if you're comparing the share prices of multiple high-growth companies.

California Water Service Group's EBITDA

California Water Service Group's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) is USD$238.3 million.

The EBITDA is a measure of a California Water Service Group's overall financial performance and is widely used to measure a its profitability.

California Water Service Group financials

Revenue TTM	USD$782 million
Operating margin TTM	17.9%
Gross profit TTM	USD$353.8 million
Return on assets TTM	2.68%
Return on equity TTM	11.25%
Profit margin	11.85%
Book value	$17.861
Market capitalisation	USD$2.6 billion

TTM: trailing 12 months

Shorting California Water Service Group shares

There are currently 699,435 California Water Service Group shares held short by investors – that's known as California Water Service Group's "short interest". This figure is 20.7% down from 882,501 last month.

There are a few different ways that this level of interest in shorting California Water Service Group shares can be evaluated.

California Water Service Group's "short interest ratio" (SIR)

California Water Service Group's "short interest ratio" (SIR) is the quantity of California Water Service Group shares currently shorted divided by the average quantity of California Water Service Group shares traded daily (recently around 197023.94366197). California Water Service Group's SIR currently stands at 3.55. In other words for every 100,000 California Water Service Group shares traded daily on the market, roughly 3550 shares are currently held short.

However California Water Service Group's short interest can also be evaluated against the total number of California Water Service Group shares, or, against the total number of tradable California Water Service Group shares (the shares that aren't held by "insiders" or major long-term shareholders – also known as the "float"). In this case California Water Service Group's short interest could be expressed as 0.01% of the outstanding shares (for every 100,000 California Water Service Group shares in existence, roughly 10 shares are currently held short) or 0.0194% of the tradable shares (for every 100,000 tradable California Water Service Group shares, roughly 19 shares are currently held short).

Such a low SIR usually points to an optimistic outlook for the share price, with fewer people currently willing to bet against California Water Service Group.

Find out more about how you can short California Water Service Group stock.

California Water Service Group share dividends

Dividend payout ratio: 45.45% of net profits

Recently California Water Service Group has paid out, on average, around 45.45% of net profits as dividends. That has enabled analysts to estimate a "forward annual dividend yield" of 1.6% of the current stock value. This means that over a year, based on recent payouts (which are sadly no guarantee of future payouts), California Water Service Group shareholders could enjoy a 1.6% return on their shares, in the form of dividend payments. In California Water Service Group's case, that would currently equate to about $0.85 per share.

While California Water Service Group's payout ratio might seem fairly standard, it's worth remembering that California Water Service Group may be investing much of the rest of its net profits in future growth.

California Water Service Group's most recent dividend payout was on 20 November 2020. The latest dividend was paid out to all shareholders who bought their shares by 6 November 2020 (the "ex-dividend date").

Have California Water Service Group's shares ever split?

California Water Service Group's shares were split on a 2:1 basis on 13 June 2011. So if you had owned 1 share the day before before the split, the next day you'd have owned 2 shares. This wouldn't directly have changed the overall worth of your California Water Service Group shares – just the quantity. However, indirectly, the new 50% lower share price could have impacted the market appetite for California Water Service Group shares which in turn could have impacted California Water Service Group's share price.

California Water Service Group share price volatility

Over the last 12 months, California Water Service Group's shares have ranged in value from as little as $39.192 up to $56.5681. A popular way to gauge a stock's volatility is its "beta".

Beta is a measure of a share's volatility in relation to the market. The market (NYSE average) beta is 1, while California Water Service Group's is 0.0567. This would suggest that California Water Service Group's shares are less volatile than average (for this exchange).

California Water Service Group overview

California Water Service Group, through its subsidiaries, provides water utility and other related services in California, Washington, New Mexico, and Hawaii. It is involved in the production, purchase, storage, treatment, testing, distribution, and sale of water for domestic, industrial, public, and irrigation uses, as well as for fire protection. The company offers its services to approximately 486,900 customer connections in 100 California communities; approximately 5,000 water and wastewater customer connections on the islands of Maui and Hawaii; approximately 17,700 customer connections in the Tacoma and Olympia areas in Washington; and approximately 8,300 water and wastewater customer connections in the Belen, Los Lunas, Indian Hills, and Elephant Butte areas in New Mexico. It also engages in the provision of non-regulated water-related services, including operating municipally owned water systems, privately owned water, and recycled water distribution systems; providing water system operation, meter reading, and billing services to private companies and municipalities; leasing communication antenna sites on its properties to telecommunication companies; billing optional third-party insurance programs to its residential customers; and providing lab services. California Water Service Group was founded in 1926 and is headquartered in San Jose, California.

Frequently asked questions

• What percentage of California Water Service Group is owned by insiders or institutions?

  Currently 0.874% of California Water Service Group shares are held by insiders and 77.521% by institutions.

• How many people work for California Water Service Group?

  Latest data suggests 1,224 work at California Water Service Group.

• When does the fiscal year end for California Water Service Group?

  California Water Service Group's fiscal year ends in December.

• Where is California Water Service Group based?

  California Water Service Group's address is: 1720 North First Street, San Jose, CA, United States, 95112-4508

• What is California Water Service Group's ISIN number?

  California Water Service Group's international securities identification number is: US1307881029

• What is California Water Service Group's CUSIP number?

  California Water Service Group's Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures number is: 130788102