Company Update: Duke Energy Corp (NYSE:DUK) – Energy Companies Launch Critical Transmission Equipment Sparing Company

[PR Newswire] – Michael Deggendorf, senior vice president, Kansas City Power & Light (KCP&L), was named Grid Assurance™ CEO and will oversee the formation and operations of the company. At KCP&L, Deggendorf has led FERC-regulated transmission business efforts, Transource and the development of Grid Assurance™. Grid Assurance™ was founded by affiliates of American Electric Power (AEP), Berkshire Hathaway Energy, Duke Energy (DUK), Edison International (EIX), Eversource Energy (ES) and Great Plains Energy (GXP) to enhance grid resiliency and give electric transmission owners faster access to long-lead time critical equipment necessary to recover from catastrophic events that could impact the nation’s electric grid. Read more on this. Duke Energy Corporation (DUK) , valued at $55.07B, started the session at $79.34. Looking at today’s market, DUK one day range is $79.14 to $80.43 with a trailing 52-week range being $65.50 to $81.39. DUK shares are currently priced at 17.33x this year’s forecasted earnings, which makes them relatively expensive compared to the industry’s 17.10x forward p/e ratio. And for income investors, the company pays shareholders $3.30 per share annually in dividends, yielding 4.16%. In a review of the consensus earnings estimate this quarter, 11 sell-side analysts are looking at $0.99 per share, which would be $0.04 better than the year-ago quarter and a $0.00 sequential decrease. In looking at the bigger picture, the full-year EPS estimate of $4.58 would be a $0.04 improvement when compared to the previous year’s annual results. The quarterly earnings estimate is based on a consensus revenue forecast of the current quarter of $5.71 Billion. If realized, that would be a 2.15% increase over the year-ago quarter. More recently, JP Morgan downgraded DUK from Overweight to Neutral (Feb 19, 2016). Previously, Wells Fargo downgraded DUK from Outperform to Market Perform. The average price target for DUK shares by the analysts covering it is $80.18, which is 1.06% above where the stock opened. See more in (NYSE:DUK) Similar Articles: Company Update: Duke Energy Corp (NYSE:DUK) – Duke Energy Renewables acquires six North Carolina solar projects from Community Energy Company Update: Duke Energy Corp (NYSE:DUK) – Duke Energy Renewables acquires 20-MW Longboat Solar Project in California from EDF Renewable Energy Company Update: Duke Energy Corp (NYSE:DUK) – Sabal Trail Transmission Project Receives FERC Certificate