Rakuten Investment Management Inc. Acquires New Stake in WEC Energy Group, Inc. $WEC

Rakuten Investment Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of WEC Energy Group, Inc. (NYSE:WEC) in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm bought 53,274 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $6,310,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Godfrey Financial Associates Inc. bought a new stake in shares of WEC Energy Group during the 4th quarter valued at about $25,000. Torren Management LLC bought a new position in shares of WEC Energy Group in the fourth quarter worth approximately $26,000. Osterweis Capital Management Inc. purchased a new stake in WEC Energy Group in the second quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Physician Wealth Advisors Inc. raised its stake in WEC Energy Group by 113.9% in the first quarter. Physician Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 246 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 131 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. raised its stake in WEC Energy Group by 972.7% in the first quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. now owns 236 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 214 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 77.20% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have commented on WEC shares. Mizuho set a $124.00 price target on shares of WEC Energy Group in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on WEC Energy Group from $120.00 to $124.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, July 16th. Weiss Ratings cut WEC Energy Group from a “buy (b)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. LADENBURG THALM/SH SH downgraded WEC Energy Group from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $110.50 target price for the company. in a research report on Tuesday, August 4th. Finally, KeyCorp reduced their price target on shares of WEC Energy Group from $126.00 to $117.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, July 23rd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have issued a Buy rating and ten have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, WEC Energy Group has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $121.91.

WEC Energy Group Price Performance

Shares of WEC Energy Group stock opened at $106.15 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.39, a current ratio of 0.53 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35. The company has a market cap of $34.59 billion, a PE ratio of 20.57, a P/E/G ratio of 1.84 and a beta of 0.47. The business has a 50 day moving average of $112.23 and a 200 day moving average of $113.54. WEC Energy Group, Inc. has a 52 week low of $102.95 and a 52 week high of $119.91.

WEC Energy Group (NYSE:WEC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The utilities provider reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.80 by $0.11. The business had revenue of $2.06 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.11 billion. WEC Energy Group had a net margin of 16.69% and a return on equity of 12.90%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.76 earnings per share. WEC Energy Group has set its FY 2026 guidance at 5.510-5.610 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that WEC Energy Group, Inc. will post 5.59 earnings per share for the current year.

WEC Energy Group Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 1st. Investors of record on Friday, August 14th will be paid a $0.9525 dividend. This represents a $3.81 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.6%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 14th. WEC Energy Group’s dividend payout ratio is presently 73.84%.

Insider Transactions at WEC Energy Group

In other WEC Energy Group news, Director Ulice Payne, Jr. sold 980 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $105.58, for a total value of $103,468.40. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 19,588 shares in the company, valued at $2,068,101.04. This trade represents a 4.76% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 0.46% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

WEC Energy Group Company Profile

WEC Energy Group is a Milwaukee, Wisconsin–based regulated energy holding company whose primary businesses are the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity and the distribution of natural gas. The company operates through a set of utility subsidiaries that provide bundled energy service, customer billing and energy-related programs to residential, commercial and industrial customers. As a regulated utility group, WEC’s operations focus on delivering reliable service while managing infrastructure investment and compliance with state and federal utility regulation.

Its utility subsidiaries include well-known regional operators such as We Energies and Wisconsin Public Service, along with Chicago-area natural gas utilities that were part of the Integrys Energy Group acquisition.