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PPL (PPL) Beats Stock Market Upswing: What Investors Need to Know

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PPL (PPL - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $34.30, moving +1.57% from the previous trading session. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.96%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.89%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.94%.

The energy and utility holding company's shares have seen a decrease of 2.6% over the last month, not keeping up with the Utilities sector's loss of 2.43% and the S&P 500's gain of 0.5%.

Market participants will be closely following the financial results of PPL in its upcoming release. On that day, PPL is projected to report earnings of $0.39 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 2.63%. At the same time, our most recent consensus estimate is projecting a revenue of $1.97 billion, reflecting a 4.69% rise from the equivalent quarter last year.

Looking at the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $1.82 per share and revenue of $8.89 billion. These totals would mark changes of +7.69% and +5.08%, respectively, from last year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for PPL. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As a result, upbeat changes in estimates indicate analysts' favorable outlook on the business health and profitability.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-term stock moves. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, actionable rating system.

Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.09% higher. PPL presently features a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

In terms of valuation, PPL is presently being traded at a Forward P/E ratio of 18.56. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 17.76, which means PPL is trading at a premium to the group.

It is also worth noting that PPL currently has a PEG ratio of 2.49. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company's expected earnings growth rate into account. The Utility - Electric Power industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 2.58 as of yesterday's close.

The Utility - Electric Power industry is part of the Utilities sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 83, putting it in the top 34% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank assesses the strength of our separate industry groups by calculating the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks contained within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.


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