PPL (NYSE:PPL) Director Kristen Robinson Sells 37,107 Shares

PPL Corporation (NYSE:PPL) Director Kristen Robinson sold 37,107 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $25.05, for a total value of $929,530.35. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 222,897 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,583,569.85. The trade was a 14.27% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link.

PPL Stock Performance

Shares of PPL stock traded up $0.62 during trading on Thursday, hitting $36.33. 5,553,380 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 8,922,270. PPL Corporation has a 1 year low of $33.17 and a 1 year high of $40.10. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $35.88 and a 200-day simple moving average of $36.79. The stock has a market capitalization of $27.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.15, a PEG ratio of 2.47 and a beta of 0.57. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.27, a current ratio of 1.00 and a quick ratio of 0.88.

PPL (NYSE:PPL) last posted its earnings results on Friday, May 8th. The utilities provider reported $0.63 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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 for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.51 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.60 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts forecast that PPL Corporation will post 1.95 EPS for the current year.

PPL Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 1st. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, June 10th were issued a dividend of $0.285 per share. This represents a $1.14 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, June 10th. PPL’s dividend payout ratio is presently 69.51%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On PPL

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of PPL. Allied Private Wealth LLC purchased a new position in PPL during the second quarter valued at $42,000. Valeo Financial Advisors LLC grew its holdings in PPL by 21.4% during the second quarter. Valeo Financial Advisors LLC now owns 7,378 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $268,000 after purchasing an additional 1,299 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its position in PPL by 3.5% in the second quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 28,131 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,023,000 after buying an additional 949 shares in the last quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc increased its position in PPL by 128.0% in the second quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 4,277 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $155,000 after buying an additional 2,401 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Parallel Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of PPL by 6.3% in the first quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 11,124 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $425,000 after buying an additional 660 shares during the period. 76.99% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts recently commented on the company. Weiss Ratings lowered PPL from a “buy (b+)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a report on Thursday, June 18th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on PPL from $42.00 to $45.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday. Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating on shares of PPL in a research report on Wednesday, June 24th. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price target on PPL from $40.00 to $48.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, April 13th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company reaffirmed an “overweight” rating on shares of PPL in a research report on Tuesday, April 21st. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $41.92.

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.