The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Southern Company (NYSE:SO). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Utilities company by 0.33% to 94.52 million shares with purchase of 0.31 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 8.67% valued currently at $6.63 billion. In addition, SSgA Funds Management, Inc. raised its holdings by 0.18 million to 62.8 million shares. And BlackRock Fund Advisors has lifted its position by 0.23% or 0.14 million shares – to 60.34 million shares.
Currently, there are 1.10B common shares owned by the public and among those 1.09B shares have been available to trade.
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Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 130 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 55 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 687,008 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 75 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 611,691 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Southern Company are Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Vanguard 500 Index Fund, and SPDR Series – Utilities Select Se. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF owns 34.27 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $2.4 billion. The company bought an additional 40403.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.14% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 54186.0 shares to see its total holdings expand to 26.64 million shares valued at over $1.87 billion and representing 2.44% of the shares outstanding. SPDR Series – Utilities Select Se bought 59008.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 16.48 million shares at a value of $1.16 billion. SPDR Series – Utilities Select Se now owns shares totaling to 1.51% of the shares outstanding.
However, the script later moved the day high at 68.95, up 0.01%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -2.12% and 4.72% over the past three months. SO shares are trading -1.84% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 2.55% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $58.85 and touched a high of $75.80 over the same period. SO has an average intraday trading volume of 4.33 million shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by -2.28%, -2.17%, and -1.65% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Southern Company (NYSE: SO) shares accounts for 64.00% of the company’s 1.10B shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 26.30%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 37.79% and 0.29% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $75.07B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 0.50. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 24.92, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $2.76. The company has a PEG of 3.51 and a Quick Ratio of 0.60 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 1.99. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.58% over the week and 1.44% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Southern Company (SO) will achieve an EPS of $0.61 for the current quarter, $0.92 for the next quarter and $4.01 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.57 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.71. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.26 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 0.03%, and 11.55% over the next financial year. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of 7.10% over the next five years, compared to 31.16% over the past 5-year period.
Looking at the support for the SO, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. BMO Capital Markets stated their Outperform rating for the stock in a research note on January 11, 2024, with the firm’s price target at $72-$77.
