Sifting through countless of stocks in the Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels industry can be tedious, and sometimes two stocks are just too similar to judge which is the better investment. If you’re on the fence about investing in The Williams Companies, Inc., Plains All American Pipeline or L.P. because you’re not sure how they measure up, it’s important to compare them on a few factors before making your decision.
Read on to learn how The Williams Companies, Inc., Plains All American Pipeline and L.P. compare based on key financial metrics to determine which better meets your investment needs.
About The Williams Companies, Inc., Plains All American Pipeline and L.P.
The Williams Companies, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as an energy infrastructure company primarily in the United States. It operates through Transmission, Power & Gulf, Northeast G&P, West, and Gas & NGL Marketing Services segments. The Transmission, Power & Gulf segment comprises Transco, NWP, and Mountain West interstate natural gas pipelines, and their related natural gas storage facilities, as well as natural gas gathering and processing; and crude oil production handling and transportation assets in the Gulf Coast region. The Northeast G&P segment engages in the midstream gathering, processing, and fractionation activities in the Marcellus Shale region primarily in Pennsylvania and New York, and the Utica Shale region of eastern Ohio. The West segment consists of gas gathering, processing, and treating operations in the Rocky Mountain region of Colorado and Wyoming, the Barnett Shale region of north-central Texas, the Eagle Ford Shale region of South Texas, the Haynesville Shale region of northwest Louisiana, the Mid-Continent region that includes the Anadarko and Permian basins, and the DJ Basin of Colorado; and operates natural gas liquid (NGL) fractionation and storage assets in central Kansas near Conway. The Gas & NGL Marketing Services segment provides wholesale marketing, trading, storage, and transportation of natural gas for natural gas utilities, municipalities, power generators, and producers; asset management services; and transports and markets NGLs. The company owns and operates approximately 32,000 miles of pipelines. The Williams Companies, Inc. was founded in 1908 and is headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Plains All American Pipeline, L.P., through its subsidiaries, engages in the pipeline transportation, terminalling, storage, and gathering of crude oil and natural gas liquids (NGL) in the United States and Canada. The company operates through two segments, Crude Oil and NGL. The Crude Oil segment offers gathering and transporting crude oil through pipelines, trucks, and on barges or railcars. This segment provides terminalling, storage, and other related services, as well as merchant activities. The NGL segment is involved in natural gas processing and NGL fractionation, storage, transportation, and terminaling. This segment also includes ethane, propane, normal butane, iso-butane, and natural gasoline derived from natural gas production and processing activities, as well as crude oil refining processes. Its NGL components are used for various applications, such as heating, engine, and industrial fuels. The company was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. operates as a subsidiary of Plains GP Holdings, L.P.
Latest Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels and The Williams Companies, Inc., Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. Stock News
As of September 4, 2026, The Williams Companies, Inc. had a $90.7 billion market capitalization, compared to the Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels median of $2.7 million. The Williams Companies, Inc.’s stock is NA in 2026, NA in the previous five trading days and up 28.78% in the past year.
Currently, The Williams Companies, Inc.’s price-earnings ratio is 29.5. The Williams Companies, Inc.’s trailing 12-month revenue is $12.3 billion with a 24.9% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was 7.8%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $2.447 per share for the current fiscal year. The Williams Companies, Inc. currently has a 2.8% dividend yield.
Currently, Plains All American Pipeline, L.P.’s price-earnings ratio is 22.1. Plains All American Pipeline, L.P.’s trailing 12-month revenue is $52.3 billion with a 5.3% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was 66.3%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $1.689 per share for the current fiscal year. Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. currently has a 6.5% dividend yield.
How We Compare The Williams Companies, Inc., Plains All American Pipeline and L.P. Stock Grades
Stock evaluation requires access to huge amounts of data and the knowledge and time to sift through it all, make sense of financial ratios, read income statements and analyze recent stock movements. AAII created A+ Investor, a robust data suite that condenses data research in an actionable and customizable way suitable for investors of all knowledge levels, to help investors streamline and work through such data.
AAII’s proprietary stock grades come with A+ Investor. These offer intuitive A‐F grades for each of five key investing factors: value, growth, momentum, earnings estimate revisions and quality. Here, we’ll take a closer look at The Williams Companies, Inc., Plains All American Pipeline and L.P.’s stock grades to see how they measure up against one another.
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The Williams Companies, Inc., Plains All American Pipeline and L.P. Stock Value Grades
| Company | Ticker | Value |
| The Williams Companies, Inc. | WMB | D |
| Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. | PAA | B |
Successful stock investing involves buying low and selling high, so stock valuation is an important consideration for stock selection.
Buying stocks that are going to go up typically means buying stocks that are undervalued in the first place, although momentum investors may argue that point.
AAII’s A+ Investor Value Grade derives from a stock’s value score. The Value Score is the percentile rank of the average of the percentile ranks of the price-to-sales ratio, price-earnings ratio, enterprise-value-to-EBITDA (EV/EBITDA) ratio, shareholder yield, price-to-book-value ratio and price-to-free-cash-flow ratio. The score is variable, meaning it can consider all six ratios or, should any of the six ratios not be valid, the remaining ratios that are valid. To be assigned a Value Score, stocks must have a valid (non-null) ratio and corresponding ranking for at least two of the six valuation ratios.
Stocks with a Value Score from 81 to 100 are considered deep value, those with a score between 61 and 80 are a good value and so on.
The Williams Companies, Inc. has a Value Score of 23, which is Expensive.
Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. has a Value Score of 75, which is Value.
The Value Stock Winner: Plains All American Pipeline, L.P.
As you can clearly see from the Value Grade breakdown above, Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. is considered to have better value than The Williams Companies, Inc.. For investors who focus solely on a company’s valuation, Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. could be a good stock to add to their portfolio. However, it’s important for investors to analyze multiple factors based on a wide range of metrics before deciding whether to buy.
The Williams Companies, Inc., Plains All American Pipeline and L.P.’s Momentum Grades
| Company | Ticker | Momentum |
| The Williams Companies, Inc. | WMB | C |
| Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. | PAA | B |
Momentum grades help to uncover stocks experiencing anomalously high rates of return; research finds that stocks with high relative levels of momentum tend to outperform, whereas those with low levels of momentum tend to continue underperforming. Momentum is based on the price change of a stock over a specified period relative to all other stocks.
Typically, AAII looks at the weighted relative strength over the trailing four quarters. The weighted four-quarter relative strength rank is the relative price change for each of the past four quarters. The most recent quarterly price change is given a weight of 40% and each of the three previous quarters are given a weighting of 20%.
The Williams Companies, Inc. has a Momentum Score of 60, which is Average.
Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. has a Momentum Score of 75, which is Strong.
The Momentum Grade Winner: Plains All American Pipeline, L.P.
As you can clearly see from the Momentum Grade breakdown above, Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. is considered to have stronger momentum compared to The Williams Companies, Inc.. For those specifically looking for companies that have stronger momentum compared to other companies in the same industry, Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. could be a good stock to invest in. However, it’s important for investors to analyze multiple factors based on a wide range of metrics before deciding whether to buy.
The Williams Companies, Inc., Plains All American Pipeline and L.P.’s Estimate Revisions Grades
| Company | Ticker | Earnings Estimate |
| The Williams Companies, Inc. | WMB | C |
| Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. | PAA | D |
Earnings estimate revisions scores consider the magnitude of a company’s earnings surprise in its last two reported fiscal quarters. Often, positive surprises beget further positive surprises‐or at least continued sales growth (the exact opposite is generally true, too).
Estimate revisions offer an indication of what analysts are thinking about the short-term prospects of a firm. Estimate revisions are based on the statistical significance of a firm’s last two quarterly earnings surprises and the percentage change in its consensus estimate for the current fiscal year over the past month and past three months.
The Williams Companies, Inc. has a Earnings Estimate Score of 41, which is Neutral.
Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. has a Earnings Estimate Score of 23, which is Negative.
The Earnings Estimate Revisions Stock Winner: No Clear Winner
Neither The Williams Companies, Inc., Plains All American Pipeline or L.P. has an Earnings Estimate Revisions Grade that could be considered a “winner.” Investors considering these companies should do additional due diligence and research to see if either could be a good addition to their portfolios. It’s important to look at a wide range of financial metrics in order to determine if The Williams Companies, Inc., Plains All American Pipeline or L.P. is the better investment when it comes to estimate revisions.
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Other The Williams Companies, Inc., Plains All American Pipeline and L.P. Grades
In addition to Momentum, Value and Estimate Revisions, A+ Investor also provides grades for Growth and Quality.
Growth investing builds on the idea that stocks of companies exhibiting strong, consistent and prolonged growth outperform those of slower-growth companies. AAII measures growth through consistency of annual sales growth, five-year sales growth rankings adjusted for extreme levels, and consistency of positive annual cash from operations.
AAII’s A+ Investor Quality Grade comes from the ranking of key metrics. Specifically, the quality grade is the percentile rank of the composite of return on assets (ROA), return on invested capital (ROIC), gross profit relative to assets, buyback yield, change in total liabilities to assets, accruals, Z double prime bankruptcy risk (Z) score and F-Score.
These 2 key factors, when combined with the above, provide a holistic view into a particular stock. Further, by joining A+ Investor you can see whether The Williams Companies, Inc., Plains All American Pipeline and L.P. pass any of our 60+ stock screens that have outperformed the market since their creation.
So, Which Is the Better Investment, The Williams Companies, Inc., Plains All American Pipeline or L.P. Stock?
Overall, The Williams Companies, Inc. stock has a Value Score of 23, Momentum Score of 60 and Estimate Revisions Score of 41.
Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. stock has a Value Score of 75, Momentum Score of 75 and Estimate Revisions Score of 23.
Comparing The Williams Companies, Inc., Plains All American Pipeline and L.P.’s grades, scores and metrics can act as a solid basis to determine whether they may be a good investment or not. You’ll also want to look at your portfolio’s asset allocation as well as your risk tolerance and financial goals to see if either of these stocks would make a good fit for you. AAII can help you figure out which investments align with your individual needs and preferences.
Investors are encouraged to do their own due diligence and research. In this way, individuals can effectively become managers of their own assets‐without having to rely on others for financial independence. You can count on AAII for timeless articles on financial planning and stock-picking, unbiased research and actionable analysis.
A+ Investor adds to our qualitative teaching with a powerful data suite to help you whittle down investment choices to find stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or mutual funds that meet your needs.
AAII Disclaimer
We make no representations or warranties that any investor will, or is likely to, achieve profits similar to those shown, because past, hypothetical or simulated performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Before making an investment decision, you should consider your circumstances and whether the information on our content is applicable to your situation. This information was prepared in good faith, and we accept no liability for any errors or omissions. The full disclaimer can be read here.
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