Essential Utilities (NYSE:WTRG) Issues Quarterly Earnings Results, Misses Estimates By $0.02 EPS

Essential Utilities (NYSE:WTRG) posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday. The company reported $0.28 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.30 by ($0.02), Briefing.com reports. The company had revenue of $434.40 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $442.76 million. Essential Utilities had a return on equity of 8.62% and a net margin of 29.52%. The business’s quarterly revenue was down .5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.34 EPS.

Essential Utilities Trading Down 2.7 %

NYSE:WTRG opened at $39.45 on Wednesday. Essential Utilities has a 1 year low of $32.07 and a 1 year high of $41.78. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $38.50 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $37.15. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.13, a current ratio of 0.62 and a quick ratio of 0.52. The company has a market cap of $10.79 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.70, a P/E/G ratio of 3.63 and a beta of 0.83.

Essential Utilities Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Investors of record on Monday, August 12th will be paid a $0.3255 dividend. This represents a $1.30 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.30%. This is a positive change from Essential Utilities’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.31. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, August 12th. Essential Utilities’s payout ratio is currently 61.61%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on WTRG. Robert W. Baird reduced their target price on shares of Essential Utilities from $44.00 to $43.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, May 6th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on Essential Utilities from $42.00 to $45.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 31st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $43.40.

Insider Activity

In other Essential Utilities news, CAO Robert A. Rubin sold 2,342 shares of Essential Utilities stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $37.43, for a total transaction of $87,661.06. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 53,391 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,998,425.13. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. 0.21% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Essential Utilities Company Profile

Essential Utilities, Inc, through its subsidiaries, operates regulated utilities that provide water, wastewater, or natural gas services in the United States. The company operates through Regulated Water and Regulated Natural Gas segments. It offers water services through operating and maintenance contract with municipal authorities and other parties.