Southern (SO) Is Today's Pre-Market Laggard Stock
Trade-Ideas LLC identified
(
) as a pre-market laggard 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 $249.3 million.
- SO traded 522,645 shares today in the pre-market hours as of 7:36 AM.
- SO is down 3.9% today from yesterday's close.
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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 4.4%. SO has a PE ratio of 2. Currently there is 1 analyst that rates Southern a buy, 1 analyst rates it a sell, and 8 rate it a hold.
The average volume for Southern has been 4.6 million shares per day over the past 30 days. Southern has a market cap of $46.1 billion and is part of the utilities sector and utilities industry. The stock has a beta of 0.11 and a short float of 2.6% with 4.67 days to cover. Shares are up 9.8% 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 and solid stock price performance. We feel its strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had sub par growth in net income.
Highlights from the ratings report include:
- 38.44% 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.
- 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 7.8%. 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.
- 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. The stock's price rise over the last year has driven it to a level which is somewhat expensive compared to the rest of its industry. We feel, however, that other strengths this company displays justify these higher price levels.
- The company, on the basis of change in net income from the same quarter one year ago, has significantly underperformed compared to the Electric Utilities industry average, but is greater than that of the S&P 500. The net income has decreased by 5.5% when compared to the same quarter one year ago, dropping from $525.00 million to $496.00 million.
- You can view the full Southern Ratings Report.
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