Back to top

Image: Bigstock

Reasons to Add Pinnacle West Capital (PNW) to Your Portfolio

Read MoreHide Full Article

Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (PNW - Free Report) is an electric utility that provides electricity services (wholesale or retail) in the state of Arizona through its subsidiaries. Pinnacle West enjoys strong economic conditions in its service territories and an expanding customer base is boosting demand for its services.

Let’s focus on the factors that make this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) stock a strong investment pick at the moment. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Earnings Estimates Revision & Surprise History

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2022 earnings per share is pegged at $4.09, which indicates an increase of 2.8% in the past 60 days. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2023 earnings per share is pegged at $4.22, which indicates an increase of 0.7% in the past 60 days.

Pinnacle West Capital’s trailing four-quarter average earnings surprise is 116%.

Debt to Capital

Debt to Capital, at the end of the third quarter, was 53.58% compared with its industry’s average of 54.31%. This indicates that the company is using lower debt compared to its peers to operate successfully .

The company’s times interest earned ratio came in at 3.3 at the end of the third quarter. A ratio greater than one indicates the firm’s ability to meet its debt obligations in the near future without any difficulty.

Systematic Investments & Emission Reduction

Pinnacle West Capital makes consistent investments to upgrade and maintain the existing infrastructure for providing 24x7 reliable services to the customer base. PNW has plans to invest $2.2 billion in strengthening its transmission and distribution operations in the 2022-2024 time period.

Pinnacle West Capital announced its emission reduction target and aims to cut emissions by 100% by 2050 and exit all coal-based electricity generation by 2031.

Dividend Yield

Utility companies generally distribute dividends. Currently, Pinnacle West Capital has a dividend yield of 4.4% compared with the industry’s 3.2%.

Price Performance

In the past one year, the stock has gained 15.1%, against the industry’s decline of 2.5%.

 

Zacks Investment Research
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Other Stocks to Consider

Other top-ranked stocks in the same sector include ALLETE Inc. (ALE - Free Report) , NiSource (NI - Free Report) and NextEra Energy (NEE - Free Report) , each currently holding a Zacks Rank #2.

ALLETE, NiSource, and NextEra’s long-term (three- to five-year) earnings growth is currently pegged at 9.3%, 6.8%, and 9.7%, respectively.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2022 earnings for ALLETE, NiSource and NextEra’s has moved up 0.3%, 0.7%, and 0.3%, respectively, in the past 60 days.

 

Published in