Jennison Associates LLC Decreases Stake in Exelon Co. (NASDAQ:EXC)

Jennison Associates LLC reduced its stake in Exelon Co. (NASDAQ:EXC) by 23.0% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 1,698,408 shares of the company’s stock after selling 508,054 shares during the period. Jennison Associates LLC’s holdings in Exelon were worth $60,973,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its stake in Exelon by 85.7% in the 4th quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 192,063 shares of the company’s stock worth $6,895,000 after purchasing an additional 88,614 shares during the period. Duality Advisers LP increased its stake in Exelon by 225.3% in the 4th quarter. Duality Advisers LP now owns 122,009 shares of the company’s stock worth $4,380,000 after purchasing an additional 84,498 shares during the period. Raymond James & Associates increased its stake in shares of Exelon by 24.4% during the fourth quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 464,064 shares of the company’s stock valued at $16,660,000 after buying an additional 91,088 shares during the period. Invesco Ltd. increased its stake in shares of Exelon by 12.2% during the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 10,069,810 shares of the company’s stock valued at $380,538,000 after buying an additional 1,092,736 shares during the period. Finally, Louisiana State Employees Retirement System purchased a new position in shares of Exelon during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $5,001,000. 80.92% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

EXC has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Mizuho raised Exelon from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $36.00 to $39.00 in a research note on Wednesday, January 10th. TheStreet lowered Exelon from a “b-” rating to a “c+” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. Seaport Res Ptn lowered Exelon from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, January 8th. Barclays lifted their price target on Exelon from $36.00 to $39.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 14th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Exelon from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, March 25th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $38.92.

Exelon Trading Down 0.3 %

Exelon stock opened at $37.56 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 0.81, a quick ratio of 0.73 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.56. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $36.56 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $37.10. Exelon Co. has a 12 month low of $33.35 and a 12 month high of $43.71. The company has a market capitalization of $37.54 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.12, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.75 and a beta of 0.54.

Exelon (NASDAQ:EXC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 21st. The company reported $0.60 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.58 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $5.37 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.87 billion. Exelon had a return on equity of 9.40% and a net margin of 10.72%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 15.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.43 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts predict that Exelon Co. will post 2.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Exelon Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 4th were issued a dividend of $0.38 per share. This is an increase from Exelon’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.05%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, March 1st. Exelon’s dividend payout ratio is presently 65.24%.

Exelon Company Profile

Exelon Corporation, a utility services holding company, engages in the energy distribution and transmission businesses in the United States and Canada. The company is involved in the purchase and regulated retail sale of electricity and natural gas, transmission and distribution of electricity, and distribution of natural gas to retail customers.