Southern (SO) Reaches New Lifetime High Today
Trade-Ideas LLC identified
(
) as a new lifetime high candidate. In addition to specific proprietary factors, Trade-Ideas identified Southern as such a stock due to the following factors:
- SO has an average dollar-volume (as measured by average daily share volume multiplied by share price) of $377.1 million.
- SO has traded 161,808 shares today.
- SO is trading at a new lifetime high.
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More details on SO:
The Southern Company, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity through coal, nuclear, oil and gas, and hydro resources in the states of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Mississippi. The stock currently has a dividend yield of 4.3%. SO has a PE ratio of 2. Currently there are no analysts that rate Southern a buy, 2 analysts rate it a sell, and 9 rate it a hold.
The average volume for Southern has been 5.2 million shares per day over the past 30 days. Southern has a market cap of $48.0 billion and is part of the utilities sector and utilities industry. The stock has a beta of 0.14 and a short float of 2.3% with 2.93 days to cover. Shares are up 11.6% year-to-date as of the close of trading on Wednesday.
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Analysis:
rates Southern as a
. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its expanding profit margins, solid stock price performance, notable return on equity and reasonable valuation levels. We feel its strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had generally high debt management risk by most measures that we evaluated.
Highlights from the ratings report include:
- 38.59% is the gross profit margin for SOUTHERN CO which we consider to be strong. It has increased from the same quarter the previous year. Along with this, the net profit margin of 12.50% is above that of the industry average.
- The return on equity has improved slightly when compared to the same quarter one year prior. This can be construed as a modest strength in the organization. Compared to other companies in the Electric Utilities industry and the overall market on the basis of return on equity, SOUTHERN CO has outperformed in comparison with the industry average, but has underperformed when compared to that of the S&P 500.
- Looking at where the stock is today compared to one year ago, we find that it is not only higher, but it has also clearly outperformed the rise in the S&P 500 over the same period, despite the company's weak earnings results. Looking ahead, unless broad bear market conditions prevail, we still see more upside potential for this stock, despite the fact that it has already risen over the past year.
- SOUTHERN CO's earnings per share declined by 5.3% in the most recent quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. This company has reported somewhat volatile earnings recently. But, we feel it is poised for EPS growth in the coming year. During the past fiscal year, SOUTHERN CO increased its bottom line by earning $2.60 versus $2.18 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings ($2.85 versus $2.60).
- Regardless of the drop in revenue, the company managed to outperform against the industry average of 7.6%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly dropped by 5.2%. The declining revenue appears to have seeped down to the company's bottom line, decreasing earnings per share.
- You can view the full Southern Ratings Report.
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