PPL (NYSE:PPL) Price Target Raised to $42.00 at BMO Capital Markets

PPL (NYSE:PPL) had its target price upped by BMO Capital Markets from $41.00 to $42.00 in a report issued on Monday morning,Benzinga reports. They currently have an outperform rating on the utilities provider’s stock.

Other equities analysts have also issued research reports about the company. Mizuho raised their price target on PPL from $39.00 to $40.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday. Barclays raised shares of PPL from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $37.00 to $40.00 in a research note on Tuesday, February 24th. Citigroup raised their target price on shares of PPL from $36.00 to $38.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, February 23rd. Morgan Stanley restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $42.00 price target on shares of PPL in a report on Friday, February 20th. Finally, UBS Group upped their price target on shares of PPL from $38.00 to $41.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, February 23rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have issued a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $41.17.

PPL Stock Up 0.7%

Shares of NYSE PPL opened at $38.77 on Monday. PPL has a 52-week low of $32.50 and a 52-week high of $39.08. The firm has a market capitalization of $29.13 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.23, a PEG ratio of 2.69 and a beta of 0.70. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $36.84 and a 200 day moving average price of $36.32. 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 released its quarterly earnings data on Friday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported $0.41 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.42 by ($0.01). PPL had a return on equity of 9.29% and a net margin of 13.06%.The firm had revenue of $2.27 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.34 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.34 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. PPL has set its FY 2026 guidance at 1.900-1.980 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that PPL will post 1.83 earnings per share for the current year.

PPL Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 1st. Investors of record on Tuesday, March 10th will be given a dividend of $0.285 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, March 10th. This is an increase from PPL’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.27. This represents a $1.14 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.9%. PPL’s dividend payout ratio is 71.25%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On PPL

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Align Financial LLC bought a new stake in shares of PPL in the 4th quarter valued at about $361,000. Captrust Financial Advisors raised its stake in shares of PPL by 62.8% during the 4th quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 115,776 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $4,054,000 after acquiring an additional 44,657 shares in the last quarter. Williams Jones Wealth Management LLC. raised its stake in shares of PPL by 8.2% during 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 lifted its position in PPL by 28.2% during the fourth quarter. Arkadios Wealth Advisors now owns 12,144 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $425,000 after acquiring an additional 2,668 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Rossby Financial LCC lifted its position in PPL by 70.0% during the fourth quarter. Rossby Financial LCC now owns 3,012 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $105,000 after acquiring an additional 1,240 shares during the last quarter. 76.99% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.