Maryland State Retirement & Pension System Grows Position in Eversource Energy $ES

Maryland State Retirement & Pension System grew its stake in Eversource Energy (NYSE:ES) by 3.7% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 361,870 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after buying an additional 12,931 shares during the quarter. Maryland State Retirement & Pension System owned approximately 0.10% of Eversource Energy worth $25,743,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Eversource Energy by 1.5% during the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 45,652,661 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $2,904,422,000 after acquiring an additional 691,165 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its position in shares of Eversource Energy by 1.7% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,343,038 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,739,564,000 after purchasing an additional 465,822 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of Eversource Energy by 2.3% during the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 9,273,415 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $587,449,000 after purchasing an additional 211,962 shares in the last quarter. Magellan Asset Management Ltd increased its holdings in shares of Eversource Energy by 1.1% in the second quarter. Magellan Asset Management Ltd now owns 6,952,127 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $442,294,000 after purchasing an additional 75,784 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Eversource Energy in the second quarter worth about $274,744,000. Institutional investors own 79.99% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have issued reports on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on Eversource Energy from $72.00 to $71.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, December 12th. Janney Montgomery Scott raised shares of Eversource Energy from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $79.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Monday, November 24th. BMO Capital Markets decreased their target price on shares of Eversource Energy from $79.00 to $77.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, November 6th. Scotiabank dropped their price target on Eversource Energy from $64.00 to $63.00 and set a “sector underperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, November 20th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company downgraded Eversource Energy from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and decreased their price objective for the company from $79.00 to $63.00 in a research report on Wednesday, November 19th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Eversource Energy currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $71.27.

Eversource Energy Price Performance

Shares of ES stock opened at $70.09 on Friday. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $68.07 and a 200 day moving average price of $67.87. Eversource Energy has a 52-week low of $52.28 and a 52-week high of $75.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.68, a quick ratio of 0.64 and a current ratio of 0.71. The firm has a market capitalization of $26.30 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.20, a P/E/G ratio of 2.38 and a beta of 0.76.

Eversource Energy (NYSE:ES) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November 4th. The utilities provider reported $1.19 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.12 by $0.07. The company had revenue of $3.22 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.28 billion. Eversource Energy had a net margin of 10.22% and a return on equity of 11.06%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.13 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Eversource Energy will post 4.75 earnings per share for the current year.

Eversource Energy Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 31st. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, December 17th were issued a $0.7525 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 17th. This represents a $3.01 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.3%. Eversource Energy’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 82.47%.

Insider Activity at Eversource Energy

In related news, EVP James W. Hunt III sold 4,129 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $72.77, for a total transaction of $300,467.33. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 32,415 shares in the company, valued at $2,358,839.55. This represents a 11.30% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. Insiders own 0.41% of the company’s stock.

About Eversource Energy

Eversource Energy (NYSE: ES) is a publicly traded, regulated energy company headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut. The company’s core business is the delivery and transmission of electricity and natural gas to residential, commercial and industrial customers across parts of New England. Eversource operates transmission and distribution networks, maintains electrical infrastructure, responds to outages and storms, and manages natural gas pipeline and distribution systems in the regions it serves.

Eversource serves customers primarily in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, operating through locally regulated utility subsidiaries that administer customer service, billing, meter reading and localized operations.