PPL (NYSE:PPL) Director John Raymond Sells 6,494 Shares of Stock

Key Points

• Insider sale: PPL Director John Raymond sold 6,494 shares on July 13 at an average price of $26.16, reducing his stake by 14.89% to 37,114 shares.
• Recent financial performance: PPL beat quarterly earnings expectations with $0.63 EPS versus $0.61 expected, and revenue of $2.77 billion topped estimates as well. Analysts currently expect full-year EPS of 1.95.
• Dividend and analyst view: The company paid a quarterly dividend of $0.285, implying a 3.1% yield and a 69.51% payout ratio. Analysts maintain a Moderate Buy consensus with an average price target of $41.67.

PPL Corporation (NYSE:PPL - Get Free Report) Director John Raymond sold 6,494 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, July 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $26.16, for a total transaction of $169,883.04. Following the sale, the director owned 37,114 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $970,902.24. This represents a 14.89% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link.

PPL Stock Performance

NYSE:PPL traded up $0.29 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $36.40. The stock had a trading volume of 922,688 shares, compared to its average volume of 8,906,470. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $35.90 and a 200 day simple moving average of $36.78. The firm has a market capitalization of $27.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.19, a PEG ratio of 2.46 and a beta of 0.57. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.27, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a current ratio of 1.00. PPL Corporation has a twelve month low of $33.17 and a twelve month high of $40.10.

PPL (NYSE:PPL - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Friday, May 8th. The utilities provider reported $0.63 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.61 by $0.02. PPL had a return on equity of 9.41% and a net margin of 13.09%.The company had revenue of $2.77 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.51 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.60 earnings per share. PPL's quarterly revenue was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts expect that PPL Corporation will post 1.95 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

PPL Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 1st. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, June 10th were given a $0.285 dividend. This represents a $1.14 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.1%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, June 10th. PPL's dividend payout ratio is currently 69.51%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. SG Americas Securities LLC raised its position in PPL by 905.7% in the fourth quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 523,756 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $18,342,000 after purchasing an additional 471,679 shares during the period. Roffman Miller Associates Inc. PA lifted its stake in shares of PPL by 7.8% during the fourth quarter. Roffman Miller Associates Inc. PA now owns 348,335 shares of the utilities provider's stock worth $12,199,000 after purchasing an additional 25,172 shares in the last quarter. Miller Howard Investments Inc. NY boosted its position in shares of PPL by 5.8% in the fourth quarter. Miller Howard Investments Inc. NY now owns 344,670 shares of the utilities provider's stock worth $12,070,000 after buying an additional 18,840 shares during the period. Allstate Corp boosted its position in shares of PPL by 101.4% in the fourth quarter. Allstate Corp now owns 54,701 shares of the utilities provider's stock worth $1,916,000 after buying an additional 27,538 shares during the period. Finally, Reaves W H & Co. Inc. grew its stake in shares of PPL by 2.0% in the fourth quarter. Reaves W H & Co. Inc. now owns 4,424,814 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $154,957,000 after buying an additional 88,531 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 76.99% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently commented on PPL. BMO Capital Markets dropped their price objective on PPL from $40.00 to $39.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Friday, June 5th. BTIG Research restated a "buy" rating on shares of PPL in a report on Thursday, June 4th. Weiss Ratings cut shares of PPL from a "buy (b+)" rating to a "buy (b)" rating in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. Seaport Research Partners set a $42.00 price target on shares of PPL in a report on Monday, April 20th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group raised their target price on shares of PPL from $40.00 to $48.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Monday, April 13th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $41.67.

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.

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