Southern, the utilities provider, has been upgraded by research analysts at Morgan Stanley. They have changed the rating from “underweight” to “equal weight” in a note issued to investors. The brokerage has also raised the target price from $60.00 to $69.00. However, the price objective still suggests a potential downside of 0.27% from the company’s current price. Several other equities research analysts have also recently commented on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price target on shares of Southern from $75.00 to $74.00. VNET Group maintained their rating as “maintains”. In contrast, StockNews.com downgraded Southern’s rating from “hold” to “sell”. LADENBURG THALM/SH SH initiated coverage with a “buy” rating. Finally, Guggenheim decreased their price objective on shares of Southern from $79.00 to $77.00. Four analysts have rated the stock as a sell, three have given it a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating, and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Southern stock opened at $69.19 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 0.83, a quick ratio of 0.62, and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.59. Southern has a 1-year low of $58.85 and a 1-year high of $80.57. The firm has a market capitalization of $75.46 billion, a PE ratio of 24.45, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.73, and a beta of 0.50. Southern last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 3rd. The utilities provider reported $0.79 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.74 by $0.05. Southern had a net margin of 11.17% and a return on equity of 9.86%. The business had revenue of $5.75 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $6.47 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $1.07 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 20.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts predict that Southern will post 3.6 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Insiders have been active in trading Southern’s stock. CEO Kimberly S. Greene recently sold 20,000 shares, and CEO Stephen E. Kuczynski sold 5,000 shares. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 138,761 shares of company stock worth $9,804,044. Large investors have also been actively buying and selling shares of Southern. Prudential PLC, Parkside Financial Bank & Trust, Covestor Ltd, NewEdge Advisors LLC, and Mackenzie Financial Corp are a few examples of institutional investors that have recently purchased shares of the business. The Southern Company is engaged in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity. It also develops, constructs, acquires, owns, and manages power generation assets, including renewable energy projects, and sells electricity in the wholesale market. The company distributes natural gas in Illinois, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee, and provides gas marketing services, gas distribution operations, and gas pipeline investments operations.
Source: claytoncountyregister.com
