PPL Sees Unusually High Options Volume (NYSE:PPL)

PPL Corporation (NYSE:PPL) was the recipient of some unusual options trading activity on Wednesday. Traders acquired 5,697 call options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 239% compared to the average daily volume of 1,682 call options.

Insider Activity at PPL

In other PPL news, CEO William Spencer Marshall sold 200,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, July 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $25.92, for a total transaction of $5,184,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,703,115 shares in the company, valued at $70,064,740.80. This trade represents a 6.89% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director John W. Raymond sold 6,494 shares of PPL stock in a transaction on Monday, July 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $26.16, for a total value of $169,883.04. Following the sale, the director directly owned 37,114 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $970,902.24. This trade represents a 14.89% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 243,601 shares of company stock worth $6,283,413. Company insiders own 0.34% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On PPL

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Parallel Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in PPL by 3.8% during the third quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 9,325 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $347,000 after buying an additional 341 shares in the last quarter. Cary Street Partners Financial LLC grew its position in PPL by 6.9% during the second quarter. Cary Street Partners Financial LLC now owns 5,299 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $180,000 after buying an additional 343 shares during the period. Busey Bank increased its holdings in PPL by 6.2% in the fourth quarter. Busey Bank now owns 6,005 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $210,000 after buying an additional 351 shares in the last quarter. Ethos Financial Group LLC increased its holdings in PPL by 0.9% in the first quarter. Ethos Financial Group LLC now owns 49,157 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,723,000 after buying an additional 429 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Plimoth Trust Co. LLC raised its position in shares of PPL by 3.8% in the first quarter. Plimoth Trust Co. LLC now owns 12,240 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $468,000 after acquiring an additional 450 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 76.99% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on PPL shares. BMO Capital Markets increased their price target on PPL from $39.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on PPL from $42.00 to $45.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, July 16th. Wells Fargo & Company reaffirmed an “overweight” rating on shares of PPL in a research note on Tuesday, April 21st. BTIG Research reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of PPL in a report on Thursday, June 4th. Finally, Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating on shares of PPL in a research report on Wednesday. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $41.67.

PPL Price Performance

Shares of NYSE PPL opened at $36.09 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $27.15 billion, a PE ratio of 22.00, a P/E/G ratio of 2.42 and a beta of 0.57. PPL has a fifty-two week low of $33.17 and a fifty-two week high of $40.10. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.27, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a current ratio of 1.00. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $35.84 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $36.81.

PPL (NYSE:PPL) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Friday, May 8th. The utilities provider reported $0.63 EPS 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 business had revenue of $2.77 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.51 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.60 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts expect that PPL will post 1.94 EPS for the current fiscal year.

PPL Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 1st. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, June 10th were issued 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 3.2%. PPL’s dividend payout ratio is currently 69.51%.

PPL Company Profile

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.