FirstEnergy Stock: Is FE Underperforming the Utilities Sector?
FirstEnergy Corp. (FE), headquartered in Akron, Ohio, generates, transmits, and distributes electricity as well as explores, produces, and distributes natural gas. Valued at $23 billion by market cap, the company owns and operates coal-fired, nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, and solar power generating facilities, and provides energy management and other energy related services.
Companies worth $10 billion or more are generally described as 'large-cap stocks,' and FE perfectly fits that description, with its market cap exceeding this mark, underscoring its size, influence, and dominance within the utilities - regulated electric industry. FirstEnergy's diversified presence in regulated and competitive markets balances its revenue streams. Strategic investments in transmission infrastructure boost grid reliability and support renewable energy integration, serving over 6 million customers across multiple states with a seasoned leadership team.
Grains, Unrest, & Gold: What Middle East Tensions Mean for Your Portfolio Now
Solar Stocks Are Plunging on Trump's Tax Bill. Should You Buy the Dip?
Hot US Temps and Middle East Tensions Boost Nat-Gas Prices
Stop Missing Market Moves: Get the FREE Barchart Brief – your midday dose of stock movers, trending sectors, and actionable trade ideas, delivered right to your inbox. Sign Up Now!
Despite its notable strength, FE slipped 11.7% from its 52-week high of $44.97, achieved on Sep. 5, 2024. Over the past three months, FE stock has declined marginally, underperforming the Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund's (XLU) 1.5% gains during the same time frame.
In the longer term, shares of FE dipped marginally on a YTD basis but climbed 3.9% over the past 52 weeks, underperforming XLU's YTD gains of 6.2% and 16.2% returns over the last year.
To confirm the bearish trend, FE has been trading below its 50-day and 200-day moving averages since early June.
On Apr. 23, FE shares closed down marginally after reporting its Q1 results. Its adjusted EPS of $0.67 topped Wall Street expectations of $0.60. The company's revenue was $3.8 billion, beating Wall Street forecasts of $3.7 billion. FE expects full-year adjusted EPS in the range of $2.40 to $2.60.
In the competitive arena of utilities - regulated electric, Duke Energy Corporation (DUK) has taken the lead over FE, showing resilience with a 6.5% gain on a YTD basis and 13.9% uptick over the past 52 weeks.
Wall Street analysts are moderately bullish on FE's prospects. The stock has a consensus 'Moderate Buy' rating from the 16 analysts covering it, and the mean price target of $45.36 suggests a potential upside of 14.2% from current price levels.
On the date of publication, Neha Panjwani did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
5 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Is NRG Energy Stock Outperforming the S&P 500?
Houston, Texas-based NRG Energy, Inc. (NRG) is an energy and home services company in the United States and Canada. With a market cap of $29.8 billion, the company operates through Texas, East, West/Services/Other, Vivint Smart Home, and Corporate Activities segments. Companies worth $10 billion or more are generally described as 'large-cap stocks', and NRG Energy fits this criterion perfectly. The company operates a diverse portfolio of electricity-generating assets and provides energy solutions to residential, commercial, and industrial customers. It focuses on innovation and sustainability, offering retail electricity plans, energy management tools, and decarbonization services. 2 Outstanding Stocks Under $50 to Buy and Hold Now Nvidia's Bringing Sovereign AI to Germany. Should You Buy NVDA Stock Here? A $1 Billion Reason to Buy MicroStrategy Stock Here Our exclusive Barchart Brief newsletter is your FREE midday guide to what's moving stocks, sectors, and investor sentiment - delivered right when you need the info most. Subscribe today! NRG Energy currently trades nearly 6% below its all-time high of $162.33 recorded on Jun. 3. NRG's stock has gained 61.2% in the past three months, notably surpassing the S&P 500 Index's ($SPX) 5.4% increase. In the longer term, NRG has surged 69.2% on a YTD basis, whereas SPX has risen 1.7%. Moreover, shares of NRG Energy soared 91% over the past 52 weeks, significantly outperforming the SPX's 9% return over the same time frame. The stock has been trading above its 50-day moving average since late April, and despite some fluctuations, it has also remained above its 200-day average since last year, underscoring its bullish trend. NRG Energy's stock soared 26.2% following the release of its better-than-expected Q1 2025 results on May 12. The company reported $8.6 billion in revenues, up 15.6% year-over-year, significantly exceeding consensus estimates. Meanwhile, its adjusted EPS surged 83.6% from the year-ago quarter to $2.68, beating analyst expectations by 45.6%. Compared to its rival, Vistra Corp. (VST) has lagged behind the NRG stock on a YTD basis, gaining 31.4%. Although VST stock has climbed 106.8% over the past 52 weeks, outpacing NRG stock. Among the 11 analysts covering the NRG stock, the consensus rating is a 'Strong Buy.' Its mean price target of $160 suggests a modest 4.8% upside potential from current price levels. On the date of publication, Aditya Sarawgi did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Jamie Dimon issued a warning about the US stock market. 3 ways you can ‘crashproof' your portfolio
Moneywise and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue through links in the content below. President Donald Trump's tariffs continue to drive market uncertainty while boosting the price of domestic and imported goods, and may further weigh down a beleaguered U.S. market, according to JPMorgan's annual stakeholder letter. 'The recent tariffs will likely increase inflation and are causing many to consider a greater probability of a recession,' Jamie Dimon, who serves as JPMorgan CEO and chairman, wrote in a letter to shareholders on April 7. 'And even with the recent decline in market values, prices remain relatively high.' His concerns aren't without merit. Thanks to Jeff Bezos, you can now become a landlord for as little as $100 — and no, you don't have to deal with tenants or fix freezers. Here's how BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has an important message for the next wave of American retirees — here's how he says you can best weather the US retirement crisis Nervous about the stock market in 2025? Find out how you can access this $1B private real estate fund (with as little as $10) Trump's latest tariff policies have battered the stock market — the S&P 500 index declined by over 10% in early April, formally entering correction territory. Dimon supported Trump's tariffs in January, calling them a 'little inflationary' yet imperative for national security. But Dimon now sees the U.S. economy weakening in the wake of Trump's recent tariff announcements, according to that same shareholder letter. 'The economy is facing considerable turbulence (including geopolitics), with the potential positives of tax reform and deregulation and the potential negatives of tariffs and 'trade wars,' ongoing sticky inflation, high fiscal deficits, and still rather high asset prices and volatility,' Dimon acknowledged. If you share these concerns, here are three ways to help protect your portfolio. When markets look shaky, investors often turn to gold — and for good reason. The precious metal is seen as a store of value, offering protection against inflation, economic downturns and stock market volatility. As market uncertainty mounts, investors often take cover with precious metals. For instance, gold has climbed around 35% over the past year, hitting over $3,200 per ounce, while silver has posted impressive gains of around 36%, reaching over $30 per ounce. One way to invest in gold that also provides significant tax advantages is to open a gold IRA with the help of American Hartford Gold. Gold IRAs allow investors to hold physical gold or gold-related assets within a retirement account — combining the tax advantages of an IRA with the protective benefits of investing in gold, making it an option for those looking to potentially hedge their retirement funds against economic uncertainties. Even better, you can often roll over existing 401(k) or IRA accounts into a gold IRA without tax-related penalties. To learn more, get your free 2025 information guide on investing in precious metals. Qualifying purchases can also receive up to $20,000 in free silver. Read more: Rich, young Americans are ditching the stormy stock market — Investors looking to diversify beyond stocks to shield their wealth from the impacts of rising prices brought on by tariffs might find real estate a compelling choice. Property values tend to rise with inflation, reflecting the increasing costs of materials, labor and land. At the same time, rental income has been shown to climb, providing landlords with a steady revenue stream that adjusts with the cost of living. Of course, purchasing a property requires significant capital — and finding the right tenant takes time and effort. But thanks to modern investment options, you don't need to own a property outright to gain exposure to real estate as a financial asset. Platforms like First National Realty Partners allow accredited investors to own a piece of institutional-grade, grocery-anchored properties without the hassle of finding and managing property. FNRP properties are leased to national brands like Whole Foods, CVS, Kroger and Walmart. Thanks to triple net leases, investors can potentially collect grocery-store-anchored income without worrying about operational headaches cutting into the bottom line. New investing platforms are also making it easier than ever to tap into the residential real estate market. For accredited investors, Homeshares gives access to the $36 trillion U.S. home equity market, which has historically been the exclusive playground of institutional investors. With a minimum investment of $25,000, investors can gain direct exposure to hundreds of owner-occupied homes in top U.S. cities through their U.S. Home Equity Fund — without the headaches of buying, owning or managing property. With risk-adjusted internal returns ranging from 12% to 18%, this approach provides an effective, hands-off way to invest in owner-occupied residential properties across regional markets. It's easy to see why great works of art tend to appreciate over time. Supply is limited, and many famous pieces have been snatched up by museums and collectors. This makes art an attractive option for investors looking to diversify their holdings. In 2022, a collection of art owned by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen sold for $1.5 billion at Christie's New York, making it the most valuable collection in auction history. But for a long time, investing in art was a privilege reserved for the ultra-wealthy. Now, that's changed with Masterworks — a platform for investing in shares of blue-chip artwork by renowned artists, including Pablo Picasso, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Banksy. Masterworks has had 23 successful exits to date, and every one of them has been profitable. All told, Masterworks has distributed over $60 million in proceeds back to investors, including the principal. To get started, simply browse their impressive portfolio of paintings and choose how many shares you'd like to buy. Masterworks will handle all the details, making high-end art investments both accessible and effortless. See important Regulation A disclosures at JPMorgan sees gold soaring to $6,000/ounce — use this 1 simple IRA trick to lock in those potential shiny gains (before it's too late) This tiny hot Costco item has skyrocketed 74% in price in under 2 years — but now the retail giant is restricting purchases. Here's how to buy the coveted asset in bulk This is how American car dealers use the '4-square method' to make big profits off you — and how you can ensure you pay a fair price for all your vehicle costs Millions of Americans now sit on a stunning $35 trillion in home equity — here's 1 new way to invest in responsible US homeowners This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Politico
28 minutes ago
- Politico
Trump wants one thing from the NATO summit. Europe is going to give it to him.
President Donald Trump wants one big thing from next week's NATO leader's summit — and European leaders are itching to give it to him. That doesn't guarantee the president will be satisfied. The 32-nation transatlantic military alliance will pledge to dramatically increase spending on defense to 5 percent of gross domestic product — 3.5 percent on hard military expenditures and 1.5 percent on more loosely defined defense-related efforts. The commitment, a watershed moment that could rebalance transatlantic security, will allow Trump, who's been demanding Europe pick up more of the burden for its own defense, a significant victory on the world stage. 'There is no way they would be going to 5 percent without Trump,' said one administration official, who was granted anonymity to share the president's views. 'So he sees this as a major win, and it is.' Trump intends to deliver a speech Wednesday at the summit's conclusion heralding the new spending pledge and his own catalytic role. But Trump's victory won't prevent him from pressuring countries to do even more, faster, which could prove difficult for some in the alliance. Spain, the NATO member with the lowest defense spending rate, isasking for an exemption from the new pledge and there is broad disagreement over the date by which this spending pledge is to be met. 'They're thinking of a timeline that is, frankly, a decade,' said Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO under President Barack Obama. 'Trump is probably thinking of a timeline that is by the end of this decade, if not sooner. That's where I think [the summit] can blow up.' While NATO allies are at odds over the details of the security pledge, there is broad agreement about the overriding importance of keeping Trump happy and maintaining a united front in The Hague, with Russia's war in Ukraine nowhere near an end and America's foreign policy focus increasingly shifting to Asia and the Middle East. In service of that aim, summit organizers have streamlined the meeting, reducing what is typically a two-day affair to 24 hours and focusing it around Trump's pledge, which has been negotiated ahead of time, and almost nothing else. 'He has to get credit for the 5 percent — that's why we're having the summit,' said one European defense official, granted anonymity to speak candidly about private government-level conversations. 'Everything else is being streamlined to minimize risk.' Asked about the pledge on Friday, Trump expressed support for allies spending more but added the 5 percent target shouldn't apply to the U.S., which is at 3.4 percent. Trump's saber-rattling toward Iran,teasing the possibility that the U.S. would join Israel's military campaign to destroy the country's nuclear development infrastructure and potentially topple the regime, has injected new uncertainty into a summit NATO officials had hoped to tightly script. But as of Friday, there were no formal plans to meet with allies to discuss the situation in the Middle East, though it could provide an opportunity for the president to tout the need for increased defense spending. NATO officials decided to pare down the agenda before Trump abruptly left the G7 halfway through the two-day program, a move that the administration official later attributed largely to his impatience with largely ceremonial multilateral meetings. In The Hague, as was the case in Canada, there will be no lengthy communique, only short statements about new commitments. The shortened NATO schedule allows for only two main events: a welcome dinner at the Dutch royal family's castle and a single meeting of the North Atlantic Council rather than the usual two or three, according to five people familiar with the planning. It is not clear if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, invited only to the summit's opening dinner on Tuesday, will attend. And there won't be a meeting of NATO's Ukraine council in The Hague. It's another concession to the U.S., which, despite the urging of some allies to hold such a session, wasn't interested in heightening the focus on the war that Trump has been unable to resolve as he promised during last year's campaign. Paring down the summit is also a way for NATO allies to gloss over the persistent divide among countries about a critical detail of their pledge: how soon they'll be expected to reach the new spending benchmark. While the U.S. — and countries in eastern Europe already above the 3.5 percent benchmark — prefer a deadline of 2030, smaller countries, struggling to reach the new goals, want until 2032 or 2035. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte floated 2032 as a compromise but, amid pushback from several smaller countries in recent days, the final wording of the pledge could give countries until 2035 to hit 5 percent, according to a European official familiar with private negotiations. 'For a lot of countries, this is the whole issue,' the European defense official continued. 'It's not so difficult to say, 'Yes, we will, we will agree.' But it's very difficult to find the right path and to actually find the budget for that path. So that's why nobody, nobody wants to talk about it anymore.' It's possible that the matter of the timeline won't be resolved during the summit. 'The priority is really to announce success in The Hague,' said another European official, also granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. 'The longer-term perspective is less important.' NATO officials and European allies are determined to avoid a repeat of the 2018 summit in Brussels, which Trump upended by threatening to withdraw the U.S. from the alliance altogether if other countries didn't get serious about reaching the 2 percent spending benchmark they'd agreed to four years earlier. More than anything since, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 altered defense calculations for Europe, pushing several countries to meet the 2 percent threshold and prompting Sweden and Finland, after decades of neutrality, to join the alliance. With the war ongoing and Trump back in office, the increased spending commitments are at least as much about Europe's long-term defense as they are appeasing the unpredictable Trump. In his speech this week at London's Chatham House, Rutte began to publicly lay out NATO's new capability targets — the amount of military equipment needed to implement a defense plan against a potential Russian attack — that defense ministers agreed to earlier this month. The alliance, Rutte said, needs 'a 400 percent increase in air and missile defence … thousands more armored vehicles and tanks, millions more artillery shells, and we must double our enabling capabilities, such as logistics, supply, transportation, and medical support.' Over time, that will lead to Europe carrying more of the burden for its own defense — and having more sway within the alliance. 'You now have a road map for Europeanizing NATO that you never had before, and that ultimately will lead to a more successful alliance,' Daalder said. 'Everybody wants to move in that direction, the U.S. and the Europeans.' Trump has long groused that the U.S. shoulders too much of the cost for defending the world and has pushed more than just NATO members to increase their defense budgets. The administration is also pressuring Japan, a non-NATO ally pursuing a new trade deal with Washington, to boost its defense spending significantly with the Pentagon describing the 5 percent benchmark as a new 'global standard.' It's a standard many countries may struggle to reach. Spain, far from the alliance's eastern flank, has been difficult to convince, as have other smaller countries such as Italy and Belgium that are still not hitting the 2 percent level the alliance adopted in 2014. Even Great Britain, one of Europe's biggest military powers, has balked at the 2032 deadline. Laying out a plan for boosting defense spending, Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised the U.K. would be at 2.5 percent by 2027 and expressed confidence about getting to 3 percent by 2034, at the latest. Paul McLeary contributed to this report.
