Southern stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
July 16th, 2019
5
The Southern Company, through its subsidiaries, engages in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity.
Should I buy Southern stock?
Trading stocks requires experience and discipline, and your buying and selling decisions must come following a methodology. Trading strategies are meant for helping you in the decision process of what stocks to choose and when is the best moment to buy them. There are thousands of trading strategies for you to choose, but at Stocks2.com we prefer those that are simple but successful.Currently, Southern stock doesn't match any of these trading strategies, so our recommendation is not to buy.
| Buy setup | Elegible |
|---|---|
| New all-time high | No |
| New 52 week high | No |
| Price crossing up 200d MA | No |
| 100d MA crossing up 200d MA | No |
Is Southern stock a buy?
Everyday, hundreds of stock ratings are posted by financial analysts to indicate a particular stock's attractiveness.
At Stocks2.com, we collected 6 ratings published for SO stock in the last 30 days. The general sentiment of these ratings is bearish for SO stock, with 2 negative ratings.| Date | Analyst / Broker | Previous rating | Current rating |
| 2019-6-19 | Barclays | n/a | Hold |
| 2019-6-13 | Mizuho | Positive | Neutral |
| 2019-4-22 | Credit Suisse Group | n/a | Sell |
| 2019-2-25 | SunTrust Banks | n/a | Hold |
| 2019-2-22 | Evercore ISI | n/a | Underperform |
| 2019-1-24 | Citigroup | Sell | Neutral |
Southern stock analysis
Daily outlook
After topping to all time highs on Wednesday, Southern declined -0.82% to $55.65.
After marking all time highs on Wednesday, Southern declined -0.82% to $55.65. From a daily perspective, SO is in a short term uptrend after plotting its last bottom ($54.44, on July/1) higher than the previous bottom, and its last top ($57.08, on Wednesday) also over the previous top. Now trading in between its last bottom and last top SO might consolidate in a plain range, waiting to break out over $57.08 or down under $54.44. On Wednesday, SO hit a new all time high, pushing higher than on July 9th tops. Check different trading setups that use ATHs as triggers.
Weekly outlook
Shares of Southern ended this week at $55.65 and remained stable a neutral -0.04%.
Southern stock is trading in the range of its last top and last bottom. Loosing would mean breaking the current uptrend. Breakdowns under last bottom are selling point signals for some trading strategies. Not so far away is the last price record Southern marked last week. Late December 2018 SO price bounced up over the SMA of 40 weeks that acted as support stopping new slides. By mid August 2018, SMA20w and SMA40w crossed up triggering a rise of 26.74%.
Southern stock price history
Southern IPO was on December 31st, 1981 at $0.35 per share1. Since then, SO stock surged a 15,800.00%, with an average of 427.00% per year. If you had invested $1,000 in Southern stock in 1981, it would worth $158,000.00 today.
1: Adjusted price after possible price splits or reverse-splits.
Southern stock historical price chart
SO stock reached all-time highs on Wednesday with a price of $57.08.
Southern stock price target is $53.40
Predicting the price evolution of a stock or any financial instrument in a reliable and repeatable way is probably impossible. However, many stock price predictions are published every day by banks, financial institutions and independent analysts. We do not recommend to follow these stock price predictions without a critical thinking from your side, as their accuracy is usually low. We have 5 price predictions for Southern stock published in the last 30 days:| Date | Analyst / Broker | Action | Previous target | Current target | Diff |
| 2019-6-19 | Barclays | Reiterates | n/a | $57.00 | - |
| 2019-6-13 | Mizuho | Raises Target | $48.50 | $55.00 | 13.4% |
| 2019-4-22 | Credit Suisse Group | Set Price Target | n/a | $51.00 | - |
| 2019-2-25 | SunTrust Banks | Reiterates | n/a | $52.00 | - |
| 2019-2-22 | Evercore ISI | Upgrades | $45.00 | $52.00 | 15.6% |
| (in average) | $46.80 | $53.40 | 14.0% |
Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
Southern presented tiny results for 2018-Q4 on February. Southern grew Earnings per Share (EPS) by 4.20%, beating experts consensus of $0.24. Southern posted $0.25.| Quarter | Reporting date | Estimated EPS | Actual EPS | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | - | n/a | 0.58 | n/a |
| 2017-Q3 | 2017-11-01 | 1.07 | 1.12 | 4.7% |
| 2017-Q4 | 2018-02-21 | 0.46 | 0.51 | 10.9% |
| 2018-Q1 | 2018-05-02 | 0.84 | 0.88 | 4.8% |
| 2018-Q2 | 2018-08-08 | 0.69 | 0.8 | 15.9% |
| 2018-Q3 | 2018-11-07 | 1.07 | 1.14 | 6.5% |
| 2018-Q4 | 2019-02-20 | 0.24 | 0.25 | 4.2% |
| 2019-Q1 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q2 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q3 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Annual financial results
Compared to 2017, last anual turnover report draw a slightly good increase of 2.01% to $23,495.00 M USD. When comparing 2018 vs 2017, likewise, profit margin (that is, the net income divided by revenues) escalated a 5.72% to 9.54%.| Year | Sales | YoY | Income/(margin) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | $17,090 M | - | $1,710 M10.0% | - |
| 2014 | $18,467 M | 8.06% | $2,031 M11.0% | 18.77% |
| 2015 | $17,489 M | -5.30% | $2,435 M13.9% | 19.89% |
| 2016 | $19,896 M | 13.76% | $2,493 M12.5% | 2.38% |
| 2017 | $23,031 M | 15.76% | $880 M3.8% | -64.70% |
| 2018 | $23,495 M | 2.01% | $2,242 M9.5% | 154.77% |
Quarterly financial results
Southern posted $5,337.00 M in revenues for 2018-Q4, a -13.35% less compared to previous quarter. Reported quarter income marked $282.00 M with a profit margin of 5.28%. Profit margin plummed a -13.68% compared to previous quarter when profit margin was 18.96%. When comparing revenues to same quarter last year, Southern sales marked a fateful loss and eased a -5.17%.| Quarter | Sales1 | QoQ2 | Income1/(margin) | QoQ2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | $5,410 M | - | $-1,370 M-25.3% | - |
| 2017-Q3 | $6,201 M | 14.62% | $1,079 M17.4% | -178.76% |
| 2017-Q4 | $5,628 M | -9.24% | $501 M8.9% | -53.57% |
| 2018-Q1 | $6,372 M | 13.22% | $942 M14.8% | 88.02% |
| 2018-Q2 | $5,627 M | -11.69% | $-150 M-2.7% | -115.92% |
| 2018-Q3 | $6,159 M | 9.45% | $1,168 M19.0% | -878.67% |
| 2018-Q4 | $5,337 M | -13.35% | $282 M5.3% | -75.86% |
| 2019-Q1 | $5,412 M | 1.41% | $2,088 M38.6% | 640.43% |
Southern ownership
When you are planning to invest in a stock, it's worth to check its ownership structure.Management staff in all public traded companies that hold equity is required to report every transaction to the SEC. For Southern, 0.08% of all outstanding shares are owned by its staff.
In case of Southern stock, 57.65% of its shares are held by institutions (mutual funds, pension funds, big banks and other large financial institutions). Bearish positions for SO stock account 0.00%, no big difference from last month.
For a better understanding, the following table shows ownership data compared to other related companies:
| SO | AEP | D | DUK | EE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $57.9 B | $45.0 B | $50.9 B | $65.1 B | $2.7 B |
| Total shares | 1,040.0 M | 493.4 M | 651.6 M | 728.1 M | 40.7 M |
| Float shares | 1,040.0 M | 493.1 M | 800.2 M | 727.5 M | 40.3 M |
| - Institutional holdings (%) | 57.6% | 75.8% | 60.2% | 61.7% | 96.3% |
| - Insider holdings (%) | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.3% | 0.1% | 1.5% |
| Shares in short selling | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Southern summary
| Tuesday, July 16th, 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $56.00 |
| Close | $55.65 |
| Day range | $55.42 - $56.15 |
| Previous close | $56.11 |
| Session gain | -0.82% |
| Average true range | $0.80 |
| 50d mov avg | $54.66 |
| 100d mov avg | $52.80 |
| 200d mov avg | $48.85 |
| Daily pattern | lt06a |
| Weekly pattern | lt06a |
Southern performance
To measure stock performance is always good to benchmark with competitors or related stocks. We compared Southern against American Electric Power, Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, El Paso Electric, Entergy, FirstEnergy, NextEra Energy, NRG Energy and PPL in the following table:| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| SOSouthern | 8.35% | 20.69% | 23.04% |
| AEPAmerican Electric... | 10.72% | 21.83% | 34.01% |
| DDominion Energy | 5.50% | 16.36% | 14.87% |
| DUKDuke Energy | 1.36% | 6.66% | 15.75% |
| EEEl Paso Electric | 12.81% | 31.39% | 11.05% |
| ETREntergy | 13.24% | 23.90% | 35.66% |
| FEFirstEnergy | 9.27% | 15.00% | 29.08% |
| NEENextEra Energy | 10.99% | 20.15% | 26.08% |
| NRGNRG Energy | -13.01% | -11.52% | 11.27% |
| PPL | -0.16% | 4.13% | 14.83% |
Southern competitors
We selected a few stocks to conform a list of Southern competitors to examine if you are interested in investing in SO:- American Electric Power (AEP)
- Dominion Energy (D)
- Duke Energy (DUK)
- El Paso Electric (EE)
- Entergy (ETR)
- FirstEnergy (FE)
- NextEra Energy (NEE)
- NRG Energy (NRG)
- PPL (PPL)
Latest Southern stock news
- InvestorPlace3 Big Stock Charts for Tuesday: Norfolk Southern, Synchrony Financial and Dish NetworkJune 11, 2019
- InvestorPlaceSouthern Stock Is a Bit Too Risky for a Utility PlayMay 2, 2019
- InvestorPlaceThe Southern Company Earnings: SO Stock Slips on Q1 MissMay 1, 2019
- InvestorPlace3 Big Stock Charts for Thursday: Discovery, Norfolk Southern and Bristol-Myers SquibbApril 25, 2019
- Seeking AlphaSouthern Copper: A Copper Major With An Ambitious Growth PlanApril 24, 2019