PPL Corporation (NYSE:PPL) Receives $41.00 Average PT from Analysts

Shares of PPL Corporation (NYSE:PPL) have been assigned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the twelve ratings firms that are covering the stock, Marketbeat.com reports. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, nine have issued a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average 12 month price objective among analysts that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $41.00.

PPL has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on PPL from $43.00 to $40.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, December 11th. Citigroup increased their target price on PPL from $36.00 to $38.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, February 23rd. Mizuho set a $39.00 target price on PPL in a research report on Wednesday, February 18th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price target on PPL from $40.00 to $41.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 18th. Finally, UBS Group upped their price target on PPL from $38.00 to $41.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, February 23rd.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On PPL

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Align Financial LLC bought a new stake in PPL during the fourth quarter worth about $361,000. Captrust Financial Advisors raised its stake in shares of PPL by 62.8% in the fourth quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 115,776 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $4,054,000 after acquiring an additional 44,657 shares during the last quarter. Williams Jones Wealth Management LLC. boosted its holdings in shares of PPL by 8.2% in the 4th quarter. Williams Jones Wealth Management LLC. now owns 32,415 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,135,000 after acquiring an additional 2,468 shares in the last quarter. Arkadios Wealth Advisors boosted its holdings in shares of PPL by 28.2% in the 4th quarter. Arkadios Wealth Advisors now owns 12,144 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $425,000 after acquiring an additional 2,668 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Rossby Financial LCC grew its position in PPL by 70.0% during the 4th quarter. Rossby Financial LCC now owns 3,012 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $105,000 after acquiring an additional 1,240 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 76.99% of the company’s stock.

PPL Trading Up 1.5%

Shares of PPL stock opened at $38.52 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $36.47 and a 200-day moving average of $36.26. The stock has a market cap of $28.94 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.08, a P/E/G ratio of 2.69 and a beta of 0.70. PPL has a 52-week low of $32.50 and a 52-week high of $39.08. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.21, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a current ratio of 0.86.

PPL (NYSE:PPL) last issued its earnings results on Friday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported $0.41 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.42 by ($0.01). The business had revenue of $2.27 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.34 billion. PPL had a net margin of 13.06% and a return on equity of 9.29%. PPL’s revenue was up 2.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.34 earnings per share. PPL has set its FY 2026 guidance at 1.900-1.980 EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that PPL will post 1.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

PPL Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 1st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, March 10th will be paid a $0.285 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, March 10th. This represents a $1.14 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.0%. This is a boost from PPL’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.27. PPL’s dividend payout ratio is presently 71.25%.

PPL Company Profile

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.