Kristen Robinson Sells 37,107 Shares of PPL (NYSE:PPL) Stock

PPL Corporation (NYSE:PPL) Director Kristen Robinson sold 37,107 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $25.05, for a total transaction of $929,530.35. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 222,897 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,583,569.85. This represents a 14.27% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link.

PPL Price Performance

Shares of PPL stock traded up $0.62 on Thursday, hitting $36.33. 5,553,380 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 8,922,270. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.27, a current ratio of 1.00 and a quick ratio of 0.88. PPL Corporation has a 52 week low of $33.17 and a 52 week high of $40.10. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $35.88 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $36.79. The firm has a market cap of $27.33 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.15, a PEG ratio of 2.47 and a beta of 0.57.

PPL (NYSE:PPL) last issued its earnings results on Friday, May 8th. The utilities provider reported $0.63 earnings per share for the quarter, topping 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 company had revenue of $2.77 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.51 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.60 EPS. PPL’s quarterly revenue was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts predict that PPL Corporation will post 1.95 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

PPL Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 1st. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, June 10th were paid a $0.285 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, June 10th. This represents a $1.14 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.1%. PPL’s dividend payout ratio is 69.51%.

Institutional Trading of PPL

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of PPL. Parallel Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of PPL by 3.8% during the third quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 9,325 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $347,000 after buying an additional 341 shares during the last quarter. Cary Street Partners Financial LLC lifted its stake in shares of PPL by 6.9% during the 2nd quarter. Cary Street Partners Financial LLC now owns 5,299 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $180,000 after acquiring an additional 343 shares during the last quarter. Busey Bank lifted its stake in shares of PPL by 6.2% during the 4th quarter. Busey Bank now owns 6,005 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $210,000 after acquiring an additional 351 shares during the last quarter. Ethos Financial Group LLC lifted its stake in shares of PPL by 0.9% during the 1st quarter. Ethos Financial Group LLC now owns 49,157 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,723,000 after acquiring an additional 429 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Plimoth Trust Co. LLC boosted its holdings in PPL by 3.8% during the 1st quarter. Plimoth Trust Co. LLC now owns 12,240 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $468,000 after acquiring an additional 450 shares during the period. 76.99% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms recently issued reports on PPL. BMO Capital Markets cut their target price on PPL from $40.00 to $39.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, June 5th. Wells Fargo & Company reissued an “overweight” rating on shares of PPL in a report on Tuesday, April 21st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on PPL from $42.00 to $45.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday. Jefferies Financial Group increased their price objective on shares of PPL from $40.00 to $48.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, April 13th. Finally, Weiss Ratings cut shares of PPL from a “buy (b+)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $41.92.

About PPL

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.