PPL (NYSE:PPL) Stock Crosses Above 200-Day Moving Average – Time to Sell?

PPL Corporation (NYSE:PPL) passed above its two hundred day moving average during trading on Tuesday . The stock has a two hundred day moving average of $36.54 and traded as high as $39.03. PPL shares last traded at $38.8320, with a volume of 5,245,437 shares.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on PPL shares. Citigroup lifted their price objective on shares of PPL from $36.00 to $38.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, February 23rd. Barclays raised shares of PPL from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $37.00 to $40.00 in a report on Tuesday, February 24th. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their target price on shares of PPL from $45.00 to $41.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 20th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their target price on shares of PPL from $41.00 to $42.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, March 16th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price target on shares of PPL from $43.00 to $40.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, December 11th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have assigned a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $41.17.

PPL Stock Performance

The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $37.50 and its 200-day simple moving average is $36.54. The company has a market capitalization of $29.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.27, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.70 and a beta of 0.66. The company has a current ratio of 0.86, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.21.

PPL (NYSE:PPL) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported $0.41 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.42 by ($0.01). The firm had revenue of $2.27 billion during 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 for the quarter was up 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.34 earnings per share. PPL has set its FY 2026 guidance at 1.900-1.980 EPS. Analysts predict that PPL Corporation will post 1.83 EPS for the current year.

PPL Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, April 1st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, March 10th were issued a $0.285 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, March 10th. This is a positive change from PPL’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.27. This represents a $1.14 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.9%. PPL’s payout ratio is presently 71.25%.

Institutional Trading of PPL

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Reaves W H & Co. Inc. lifted its stake in shares of PPL by 13.5% in the third quarter. Reaves W H & Co. Inc. now owns 4,336,283 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $161,136,000 after purchasing an additional 515,523 shares during the period. Allstate Corp acquired a new position in PPL during the third quarter worth about $1,009,000. Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors LP lifted its stake in shares of PPL by 59.5% during the third quarter. Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors LP now owns 452,711 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $16,823,000 after buying an additional 168,818 shares during the period. SG Americas Securities LLC lifted its stake in shares of PPL by 905.7% during the fourth quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 523,756 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $18,342,000 after buying an additional 471,679 shares during the period. Finally, Roffman Miller Associates Inc. PA lifted its stake in shares of PPL by 8.1% during the third quarter. Roffman Miller Associates Inc. PA now owns 323,163 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $12,009,000 after buying an additional 24,255 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 76.99% of the company’s stock.

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.