PPL Corporation (NYSE:PPL) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

Shares of PPL Corporation (NYSE:PPLGet Free Report) have received a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the thirteen research firms that are covering the firm, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. The average twelve-month price objective among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $41.8333.

Several analysts have recently weighed in on PPL shares. Mizuho lifted their price target on shares of PPL from $39.00 to $40.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, March 16th. Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of PPL from $36.00 to $38.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, February 23rd. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price target on shares of PPL from $42.00 to $40.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, May 11th. Seaport Research Partners set a $42.00 price target on shares of PPL in a research note on Monday, April 20th. Finally, Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of PPL from a “buy (b+)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a research note on Friday.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on PPL

Hedge Funds Weigh In On PPL

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Stock Yards Bank & Trust Co. grew its holdings in PPL by 4.5% in the third quarter. Stock Yards Bank & Trust Co. now owns 6,924 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $257,000 after purchasing an additional 300 shares during the last quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC grew its holdings in PPL by 3.8% in the third quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 9,325 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $347,000 after purchasing an additional 341 shares during the last quarter. Cary Street Partners Financial LLC grew its holdings in PPL by 6.9% in the second quarter. Cary Street Partners Financial LLC now owns 5,299 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $180,000 after purchasing an additional 343 shares during the last quarter. Busey Bank grew its holdings in PPL by 6.2% in the fourth quarter. Busey Bank now owns 6,005 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $210,000 after purchasing an additional 351 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Ethos Financial Group LLC grew its holdings in PPL by 0.9% in the first quarter. Ethos Financial Group LLC now owns 49,157 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,723,000 after purchasing an additional 429 shares during the last quarter. 76.99% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

PPL Stock Performance

PPL stock opened at $36.35 on Wednesday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $37.75 and a 200-day moving average price of $36.66. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.27, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a current ratio of 1.00. PPL has a fifty-two week low of $33.17 and a fifty-two week high of $40.10. The company has a market capitalization of $27.35 billion, a PE ratio of 22.17, a P/E/G ratio of 2.48 and a beta of 0.60.

PPL (NYSE:PPLGet Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Friday, May 8th. The utilities provider reported $0.63 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.61 by $0.02. PPL had a net margin of 13.09% and a return on equity of 9.41%. The firm had revenue of $2.77 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.51 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.60 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that PPL will post 1.95 earnings per share for the current year.

PPL Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 1st. Investors of record on Wednesday, June 10th will be issued a dividend of $0.285 per share. This represents a $1.14 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, June 10th. PPL’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 69.51%.

PPL Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

PPL Corporation is an energy company that owns and operates electric transmission and distribution infrastructure and provides related customer services. The company’s core business centers on delivering electricity to residential, commercial and industrial customers through regulated utility operations, maintaining grid reliability, responding to outages and managing customer billing and account services.

PPL’s activities include construction and maintenance of distribution and transmission lines, meter and grid management, and programs to support energy efficiency and the interconnection of distributed resources.

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Analyst Recommendations for PPL (NYSE:PPL)

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