Jones Financial Companies Lllp Raises Stake in FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE:FE)

Jones Financial Companies Lllp boosted its stake in FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE:FE) by 123.6% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 14,821 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 8,192 shares during the quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp’s holdings in FirstEnergy were worth $590,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Farther Finance Advisors LLC grew its stake in FirstEnergy by 25.4% during the third quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 4,131 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $183,000 after acquiring an additional 836 shares in the last quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. purchased a new position in shares of FirstEnergy during the 3rd quarter valued at $754,000. QRG Capital Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of FirstEnergy by 11.8% in the third quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 12,728 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $564,000 after purchasing an additional 1,346 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. boosted its stake in FirstEnergy by 5.2% during the third quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 617,768 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $27,398,000 after buying an additional 30,769 shares during the period. Finally, Tyler Stone Wealth Management grew its holdings in shares of FirstEnergy by 94.4% during the third quarter. Tyler Stone Wealth Management now owns 22,817 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,012,000 after purchasing an additional 11,081 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.41% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have commented on FE. Wolfe Research cut shares of FirstEnergy from an “outperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 23rd. Guggenheim lowered their price objective on shares of FirstEnergy from $52.00 to $45.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, February 28th. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on shares of FirstEnergy from $48.00 to $41.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Scotiabank cut their price target on shares of FirstEnergy from $50.00 to $44.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Finally, KeyCorp decreased their price objective on FirstEnergy from $48.00 to $47.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, December 4th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have given a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $45.33.

FirstEnergy Price Performance

Shares of FirstEnergy stock opened at $38.54 on Monday. The business has a 50 day moving average of $39.98 and a 200 day moving average of $41.60. FirstEnergy Corp. has a 52 week low of $36.81 and a 52 week high of $44.97. The company has a market cap of $22.22 billion, a PE ratio of 24.86, a P/E/G ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 0.48. The company has a quick ratio of 0.46, a current ratio of 0.56 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.58.

FirstEnergy (NYSE:FE) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, February 26th. The utilities provider reported $0.67 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.70 by ($0.03). The company had revenue of $3.20 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.53 billion. FirstEnergy had a return on equity of 11.38% and a net margin of 6.64%. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that FirstEnergy Corp. will post 2.66 earnings per share for the current year.

FirstEnergy Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Saturday, March 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 7th were given a dividend of $0.425 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, February 7th. This represents a $1.70 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.41%. FirstEnergy’s payout ratio is 100.00%.

FirstEnergy Company Profile

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.