FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE:FE) Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.45

FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE:FE) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, March 19th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Wednesday, May 7th will be paid a dividend of 0.445 per share by the utilities provider on Sunday, June 1st. This represents a $1.78 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.50%. This is a 4.7% increase from FirstEnergy’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.43.

FirstEnergy has raised its dividend by an average of 2.6% per year over the last three years. FirstEnergy has a dividend payout ratio of 60.1% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect FirstEnergy to earn $2.89 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.70 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 58.8%.

FirstEnergy Trading Down 0.8 %

Shares of FE opened at $39.58 on Thursday. The company’s fifty day moving average is $39.93 and its 200 day moving average is $41.38. FirstEnergy has a fifty-two week low of $36.81 and a fifty-two week high of $44.97. The stock has a market capitalization of $22.82 billion, a PE ratio of 25.53, a P/E/G ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 0.48. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.58, a quick ratio of 0.46 and a current ratio of 0.56.

FirstEnergy (NYSE:FE) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 26th. The utilities provider reported $0.67 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.70 by ($0.03). The business had revenue of $3.20 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.53 billion. FirstEnergy had a return on equity of 11.38% and a net margin of 6.64%. Sell-side analysts expect that FirstEnergy will post 2.66 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On FirstEnergy

A hedge fund recently bought a new stake in FirstEnergy stock. Brighton Jones LLC bought a new stake in FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE:FE) during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 6,441 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $256,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.41% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts have commented on the stock. Scotiabank dropped their price objective on shares of FirstEnergy from $50.00 to $44.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 28th. KeyCorp decreased their target price on FirstEnergy from $48.00 to $47.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, December 4th. Guggenheim decreased their target price on FirstEnergy from $52.00 to $45.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on FirstEnergy from $52.00 to $50.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on FirstEnergy from $48.00 to $41.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 28th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $45.33.

About FirstEnergy

FirstEnergy Corp., through its subsidiaries, generates, transmits, and distributes electricity in the United States. It operates through Regulated Distribution and Regulated Transmission segments. The company owns and operates coal-fired, nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, and solar power generating facilities.