KEN vs NE: Which Is the Better Buy in 2026?

Same yardstick, side by side (as of August 2026). Valuation lined up like this is most meaningful for two names in the same corner of the market, which these are. Figures are approximate; verify before investing.

The metrics above tell you which is the marginally better business. The bigger risk for most people is not picking the slightly worse stock, it is over-concentrating. KEN and NE share themes, so owning both, or adding either to what you already hold, can quietly push a large share of your portfolio into one bet.

This is the part a generic comparison page cannot answer, because it depends on what you own. Connect your brokerage and Walnut shows your real, combined KEN and NE exposure, flags overlap with your existing positions, and tells you if adding one would tip you past a concentration you are comfortable with, read-only by default, with your login staying at your broker. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

Kenon Holdings was spun out of Israel Corporation in January 2015 as a vehicle for a set of unrelated stakes, and over the following decade it sold nearly all of them. Tower Semiconductor was distributed to shareholders in 2015, the Latin American power business (Inkia) went for about $1.3 billion in 2017, and the last ZIM shipping shares were sold in 2024 after realizing roughly $2.1 billion in total from a position originally bought for $200 million. What is left is one primary business: approximately 46% of OPC Energy Ltd, which is separately listed in Tel Aviv. OPC accounted for all of Kenon's revenue in 2025. It runs four gas-fired plants in Israel (Rotem 466 MW, Zomet 396 MW, Hadera 144 MW, Gat 75 MW) plus onsite generation for industrial customers, and it owns roughly 71% of CPV Group in the US, which holds interests in combined-cycle plants in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey and New York alongside a wind and solar portfolio. Kenon also still holds a 12% stake in Qoros, the China-based carmaker, which is a legal claim more than an operating asset.

Full KEN guide

Noble Corporation plc is a London-based offshore drilling contractor that owns and operates a fleet of drillships, semisubmersibles, and jackup rigs, which it contracts to oil and gas companies to drill and complete wells in deepwater and shallow-water basins around the world. Its 2024 all-stock-and-cash acquisition of Diamond Offshore roughly doubled its exposure to high-specification floaters and gave it a deepwater fleet comparable in scale and technical capability to Transocean, with meaningful positions in the U.S. Gulf, South America (notably Brazil and Guyana), West Africa, and the North Sea. The business is fundamentally a leasing model: revenue comes from day rates on multi-month and multi-year contracts, and profitability swings with fleet utilization and the day rates producers are willing to pay.

Full NE guide

Both fit overlapping themes, but they are not interchangeable. The useful comparison is which set of drivers and risks you want exposure to.

• KEN drivers: OPC's Israeli development pipeline; CPV consolidating its US plants into full ownership.
• NE drivers: Backlog and revenue visibility; Diamond Offshore scale and synergies.

A faster-growing, richer-valued name usually swings harder, so it suits a longer horizon and a higher tolerance for volatility; a steadier, more cash-generative business suits a more conservative or income-minded investor. The honest test is which set of risks you could hold through a drawdown: Concentration is the first risk and it is close to total: one 46% stake in one listed company, whose own results depend on Israeli electricity tariffs, natural gas supply and a war-affected operating environment. For NE, offshore drilling is highly cyclical and capital-intensive, so Noble's earnings and stock are sensitive to oil prices and producers' offshore capital budgets.

Growth-minded investors who believe the theme has years to run tend to accept the richer multiple for more upside; value-minded investors lean toward the cheaper forward earnings and steadier profile. Pick KEN if you believe its drivers more; NE if you believe its. Many investors hold both, but since they share themes, that is a concentrated bet, not diversification. Decide deliberately and check overlap. For the full detail, see the KEN and NE guides.

KEN. Kenon reports in US dollars and files a Form 20-F as a foreign private issuer, not a 10-K, so there are no quarterly 10-Qs and interim figures arrive as unaudited 6-K exhibits. OPC changed its presentation currency from shekels to dollars on January 1, 2026 while keeping the shekel as its functional currency, so dollar comparatives shift with the exchange rate even when volumes do not. The trailing P/E is not especially informative here, because reported profit attributable to Kenon swings with equity-method results, one-off recoveries and non-controlling interest allocations rather than tracking the value of the OPC stake.

NE. Noble reported Q1 2026 net income near $121 million (about $0.75 diluted EPS) on revenue of roughly $786 million, helped by cost cuts and gains on rig sales. Full-year 2026 guidance points to revenue of about $2.8 to $3.0 billion and adjusted EBITDA of roughly $940 million to $1.02 billion. The stock's trailing P/E in the mid-30s reflects both a re-rating and the lumpy, cyclical nature of drilling earnings.

Headline figures (approximate, August 2026): KEN shows revenue (ttm) ~$1.0 billion (FY2025 ~$872M; Q1 2026 ~$317M vs ~$183M), profit attributable to kenon (ttm) ~$80 million, about ~$1.54 per share, market capitalization ~$3.4 billion (~$65 per share on ~52.1M shares), trailing p/e and p/b ~41x earnings, ~2.3x the ~$1.5 billion of equity attributable to Kenon; NE shows market cap ~$6.2B, revenue (2026 guidance) ~$2.8B to $3.0B, adjusted ebitda (2026 guidance) ~$940M to $1,020M, contract backlog ~$7.5B.

KEN and NE are related but distinct: same themes, different businesses and risks. Neither wins in the abstract; the right pick is whichever thesis you actually believe, sized so you are not over-concentrated in one theme. Walnut can show your combined KEN and NE exposure against your real portfolio. It is not an investment adviser.