Benjamin F. Edwards & Company Inc. Has $293,000 Stock Position in PPL Co. (NYSE:PPL)

Benjamin F. Edwards & Company Inc. raised its stake in PPL Co. (NYSE:PPL) by 2,637.1% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 10,784 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after buying an additional 10,390 shares during the quarter. Benjamin F. Edwards & Company Inc.’s holdings in PPL were worth $293,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. First Horizon Advisors Inc. boosted its position in PPL by 55.6% in the 4th quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 3,397 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $92,000 after buying an additional 1,214 shares during the last quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board raised its holdings in PPL by 6.1% during the 3rd quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 171,908 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $4,050,000 after purchasing an additional 9,905 shares during the last quarter. Anchor Investment Management LLC acquired a new position in PPL during the 4th quarter valued at about $35,000. Picton Mahoney Asset Management bought a new position in shares of PPL in the 3rd quarter valued at about $2,412,000. Finally, FMR LLC grew its position in shares of PPL by 13.4% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 14,390,818 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $339,048,000 after buying an additional 1,695,726 shares during the period. 76.99% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

PPL has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price objective on shares of PPL from $30.00 to $31.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 11th. Mizuho boosted their target price on PPL from $27.00 to $28.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 2nd. TheStreet lowered shares of PPL from a “b-” rating to a “c” rating in a research note on Friday, February 16th. Bank of America increased their target price on shares of PPL from $29.00 to $30.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, April 11th. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of PPL from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $32.27.

PPL Stock Up 1.3 %

Shares of PPL stock opened at $28.90 on Friday. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $27.14 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $26.53. PPL Co. has a 1 year low of $22.20 and a 1 year high of $28.95. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.12. The firm has a market capitalization of $21.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.06, a PEG ratio of 2.55 and a beta of 0.81.

PPL (NYSE:PPL) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, May 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.54 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.52 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $2.30 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.39 billion. PPL had a return on equity of 8.80% and a net margin of 9.29%. PPL’s quarterly revenue was down 4.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.48 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts predict that PPL Co. will post 1.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

PPL Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 8th were given a dividend of $0.2575 per share. This is a positive change from PPL’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.24. This represents a $1.03 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.56%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 7th. PPL’s dividend payout ratio is 100.00%.

PPL Company Profile

PPL Corporation, an energy company, focuses on providing electricity and natural gas to approximately 3.6 million customers in the United States. It operates through three segments: Kentucky Regulated, Pennsylvania Regulated, and Rhode Island Regulated. The company delivers electricity to customers in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia, and Rhode Island; delivers natural gas to customers in Kentucky and Rhode Island; and generates electricity from power plants in Kentucky.