Southern (NYSE:SO) Issues Q1 2025 Earnings Guidance

Southern (NYSE:SO) updated its first quarter 2025 earnings guidance on Thursday. The company provided earnings per share (EPS) guidance of 1.200-1.200 for the period, compared to the consensus estimate of 1.150. The company issued revenue guidance of -. Southern also updated its FY 2025 guidance to 4.200-4.300 EPS.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently commented on SO. BMO Capital Markets lowered their price objective on Southern from $99.00 to $97.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Guggenheim downgraded Southern from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 23rd. Scotiabank upped their price objective on Southern from $96.00 to $98.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 12th. Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective on Southern from $88.00 to $85.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Mizuho upped their price objective on Southern from $83.00 to $85.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, February 3rd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $90.54.

Southern Price Performance

Shares of Southern stock traded up $0.64 during trading on Friday, hitting $88.46. The stock had a trading volume of 5,347,946 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,056,783. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.60, a current ratio of 0.67 and a quick ratio of 0.66. The firm has a market cap of $96.92 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.06, a PEG ratio of 3.01 and a beta of 0.53. The business has a fifty day moving average of $83.70 and a two-hundred day moving average of $86.82. Southern has a fifty-two week low of $65.99 and a fifty-two week high of $94.45.

Southern (NYSE:SO) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported $0.50 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.51 by ($0.01). The firm had revenue of $6.34 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.90 billion. Southern had a net margin of 16.47% and a return on equity of 12.23%. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Southern will post 4.29 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Southern Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 6th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 18th will be given a dividend of $0.72 per share. This represents a $2.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.26%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 18th. Southern’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 71.82%.

Insider Transactions at Southern

In other news, CEO James Jeffrey Peoples sold 14,540 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $86.00, for a total transaction of $1,250,440.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 13,236 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,138,296. The trade was a 52.35 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, EVP Martin Bernard Davis sold 1,170 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $85.90, for a total value of $100,503.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 88,393 shares in the company, valued at $7,592,958.70. This trade represents a 1.31 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.18% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About Southern

The Southern Company, through its subsidiaries, engages in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity. The company also develops, constructs, acquires, owns, and manages power generation assets, including renewable energy projects and sells electricity in the wholesale market; and distributes natural gas in Illinois, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee, as well as provides gas marketing services, gas distribution operations, and gas pipeline investments operations.