FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE:FE) Receives Consensus Rating of “Hold” from Analysts

Shares of FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE:FE) have been given a consensus recommendation of “Hold” by the fifteen brokerages that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat Ratings reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, eight have assigned a hold recommendation and six have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month target price among brokers that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $45.00.

Several research firms have recently commented on FE. Guggenheim lowered their price objective on shares of FirstEnergy from $52.00 to $45.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 28th. Wolfe Research lowered FirstEnergy from an “outperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 23rd. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of FirstEnergy from $41.00 to $43.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, March 21st. KeyCorp lowered their price target on FirstEnergy from $48.00 to $47.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, December 4th. Finally, Scotiabank decreased their price objective on shares of FirstEnergy from $50.00 to $44.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, February 28th.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Boston Partners lifted its position in FirstEnergy by 73.5% in the fourth quarter. Boston Partners now owns 16,503,080 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $656,309,000 after buying an additional 6,991,866 shares during the last quarter. Soroban Capital Partners LP increased its stake in FirstEnergy by 60.2% during the 4th quarter. Soroban Capital Partners LP now owns 8,340,760 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $331,795,000 after buying an additional 3,133,083 shares during the period. Zimmer Partners LP lifted its holdings in FirstEnergy by 33.4% during the 4th quarter. Zimmer Partners LP now owns 4,918,857 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $195,672,000 after buying an additional 1,232,040 shares in the last quarter. Amundi grew its stake in shares of FirstEnergy by 103.8% in the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 1,843,964 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $73,334,000 after acquiring an additional 939,240 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Renaissance Technologies LLC increased its position in shares of FirstEnergy by 118.2% during the fourth quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 1,640,808 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $65,271,000 after acquiring an additional 888,800 shares during the period. 89.41% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

FirstEnergy Stock Up 0.9 %

Shares of FE stock opened at $40.43 on Tuesday. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $39.90 and its 200 day moving average price is $41.09. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.58, a current ratio of 0.56 and a quick ratio of 0.46. FirstEnergy has a 1-year low of $36.81 and a 1-year high of $44.97. The company has a market cap of $23.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.09, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 0.48.

FirstEnergy (NYSE:FE) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 26th. The utilities provider reported $0.67 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.70 by ($0.03). The company had revenue of $3.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.53 billion. FirstEnergy had a net margin of 6.64% and a return on equity of 11.38%. On average, research analysts expect that FirstEnergy will post 2.66 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

FirstEnergy Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Sunday, June 1st. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, May 7th will be issued a $0.445 dividend. This represents a $1.78 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.40%. This is a positive change from FirstEnergy’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.43. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 7th. FirstEnergy’s payout ratio is presently 104.71%.

About FirstEnergy

FirstEnergy Corp., through its subsidiaries, generates, transmits, and distributes electricity in the United States. It operates through Regulated Distribution and Regulated Transmission segments. The company owns and operates coal-fired, nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, and solar power generating facilities.