Black Hills (NYSE:BKH) Raised to “Neutral” at Mizuho

Black Hills (NYSE:BKH) was upgraded by analysts at Mizuho from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report released on Tuesday, Briefing.com reports. The firm currently has a $53.00 target price on the utilities provider’s stock. Mizuho’s price objective would indicate a potential upside of 4.52% from the stock’s current price.

A number of other research analysts also recently issued reports on the company. StockNews.com began coverage on Black Hills in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a “sell” rating on the stock. Bank of America decreased their target price on Black Hills from $60.00 to $49.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a report on Monday. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price target on shares of Black Hills from $66.00 to $62.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, August 4th. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price objective on shares of Black Hills from $68.00 to $61.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, September 6th. Finally, TheStreet cut shares of Black Hills from a “b” rating to a “c+” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 5th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and five have given a hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Black Hills has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $59.83.

Black Hills Stock Performance

NYSE:BKH opened at $50.71 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.17, a quick ratio of 0.67 and a current ratio of 0.77. Black Hills has a fifty-two week low of $46.43 and a fifty-two week high of $73.98. The firm has a market cap of $3.45 billion, a PE ratio of 13.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 6.34 and a beta of 0.64. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $50.78 and a 200-day moving average price of $56.61.

Black Hills (NYSE:BKH) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.67 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.51 by $0.16. Black Hills had a net margin of 10.08% and a return on equity of 8.01%. The business had revenue of $407.10 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $579.85 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.54 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 12.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts predict that Black Hills will post 3.75 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Black Hills by 7.1% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 7,963,935 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $479,907,000 after purchasing an additional 526,334 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Black Hills by 2.2% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 6,969,058 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $472,015,000 after buying an additional 151,038 shares during the last quarter. Macquarie Group Ltd. boosted its holdings in Black Hills by 0.4% in the first quarter. Macquarie Group Ltd. now owns 2,554,967 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $161,218,000 after acquiring an additional 9,330 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors grew its stake in shares of Black Hills by 5.2% in the second quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 2,038,746 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $122,855,000 after acquiring an additional 100,000 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Black Hills by 7.5% during the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,411,214 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $85,040,000 after acquiring an additional 98,435 shares in the last quarter. 86.64% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Black Hills

Black Hills Corporation, through its subsidiaries, operates as an electric and natural gas utility company in the United States. It operates in two segments, Electric Utilities and Gas Utilities. The Electric Utilities segment generates, transmits, and distributes electricity to approximately 220,000 electric utility customers in Colorado, Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming; and owns and operates 1,482 megawatts of generation capacity and 9,024 miles of electric transmission and distribution lines.