Cohen Investment Advisors LLC Purchases 134 Shares of The Southern Company (NYSE:SO)

Cohen Investment Advisors LLC increased its stake in The Southern Company (NYSE:SO) by 2.5% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 5,487 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after buying an additional 134 shares during the period. Cohen Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Southern were worth $452,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. OneAscent Financial Services LLC purchased a new position in Southern during the 3rd quarter valued at about $576,000. Fisher Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in Southern by 5.4% in the 3rd quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 108,361 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $9,772,000 after purchasing an additional 5,589 shares in the last quarter. Financial Enhancement Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Southern in the fourth quarter worth $326,000. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. grew its position in Southern by 94.4% during the third quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. now owns 288,679 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $26,033,000 after buying an additional 140,151 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Swiss National Bank raised its position in shares of Southern by 0.5% during the 3rd quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 3,245,500 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $292,679,000 after buying an additional 15,300 shares in the last quarter. 64.10% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts recently commented on SO shares. Scotiabank upped their target price on Southern from $96.00 to $98.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, December 12th. UBS Group lifted their target price on shares of Southern from $90.00 to $91.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, September 20th. BMO Capital Markets lowered their price objective on shares of Southern from $99.00 to $97.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, November 1st. Guggenheim upped their target price on Southern from $93.00 to $97.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley dropped their price target on Southern from $88.00 to $85.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $90.14.

Insider Activity at Southern

In other Southern news, EVP Martin Bernard Davis sold 1,170 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $85.90, for a total transaction of $100,503.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 88,393 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,592,958.70. The trade was a 1.31 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Southern Trading Up 1.8 %

Shares of NYSE:SO opened at $83.86 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.66, a quick ratio of 0.66 and a current ratio of 0.91. The stock has a market capitalization of $91.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.50, a PEG ratio of 2.77 and a beta of 0.52. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $84.86 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $86.16. The Southern Company has a 52-week low of $65.80 and a 52-week high of $94.45.

Southern (NYSE:SO) last released its earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The utilities provider reported $1.43 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.33 by $0.10. Southern had a return on equity of 12.78% and a net margin of 17.87%. The company had revenue of $7.27 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $7.14 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.42 earnings per share. Southern’s quarterly revenue was up 4.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that The Southern Company will post 4.04 EPS for the current year.

Southern Company Profile

The Southern Company, through its subsidiaries, engages in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity. The company also develops, constructs, acquires, owns, and manages power generation assets, including renewable energy projects and sells electricity in the wholesale market; and distributes natural gas in Illinois, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee, as well as provides gas marketing services, gas distribution operations, and gas pipeline investments operations.