Southern (SO) Expected to Announce Quarterly Earnings on Thursday

Southern (NYSE:SO) is expected to release its earnings data before the market opens on Thursday, February 20th. Analysts expect the company to announce earnings of $0.51 per share and revenue of $5.90 billion for the quarter. Persons that wish to register for the company’s earnings conference call can do so using this link.

Southern Stock Up 0.5 %

NYSE:SO opened at $86.85 on Thursday. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $83.33 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $86.77. The firm has a market cap of $95.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.20, a P/E/G ratio of 2.86 and a beta of 0.53. Southern has a fifty-two week low of $65.80 and a fifty-two week high of $94.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.66, a quick ratio of 0.66 and a current ratio of 0.91.

Southern Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 6th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 18th will be paid a $0.72 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 18th. This represents a $2.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.32%. Southern’s dividend payout ratio is presently 66.98%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Southern news, CEO James Jeffrey Peoples sold 14,540 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $86.00, for a total transaction of $1,250,440.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 13,236 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,138,296. The trade was a 52.35 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, EVP Martin Bernard Davis sold 1,170 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $85.90, for a total value of $100,503.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 88,393 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,592,958.70. The trade was a 1.31 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

SO has been the subject of several research reports. Morgan Stanley reduced their price target on shares of Southern from $88.00 to $85.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Scotiabank increased their price target on shares of Southern from $96.00 to $98.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 12th. BMO Capital Markets cut their price objective on shares of Southern from $99.00 to $97.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Guggenheim cut Southern from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, January 23rd. Finally, Mizuho boosted their price target on Southern from $83.00 to $85.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, February 3rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Southern presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $89.79.

About Southern

The Southern Company, through its subsidiaries, engages in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity. The company also develops, constructs, acquires, owns, and manages power generation assets, including renewable energy projects and sells electricity in the wholesale market; and distributes natural gas in Illinois, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee, as well as provides gas marketing services, gas distribution operations, and gas pipeline investments operations.