12 Utility Dividend Stocks With Accelerated Earnings Growth

Growth stocks are wonderful especially if they are at the beginning of their growth path. Growth normally creates shareholder value and if the company doesn’t need much money to finance the growth, you can benefit already within the early stage.

In order to find some growth opportunities from the utility sector with current dividend payments, I screened the sector by stocks with a positive earnings growth (past five years). In order to catch up only those stocks with a gaining earnings growth, I observed only stocks with a quarter over quarter sales and earnings per share growth of more than five percent. Exactly twelve companies fulfilled these criteria. Eight of them are recommended to buy.

PPL Corporation (NYSE:PPL) has a market capitalization of $16.01 billion. The company employs 17,722 people, generates revenues of $12,737.00 million and has a net income of $1,510.00 million. The firm’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) amounts to $4,309.00 million. Because of these figures, the EBITDA margin is 33.83 percent (operating margin 24.30 percent and the net profit margin finally 11.86 percent).

Financial Analysis:
The total debt representing 43.54 percent of the company’s assets and the total debt in relation to the equity amounts to 171.51 percent. Due to the financial situation, a return on equity of 15.62 percent was realized. Twelve trailing months earnings per share reached a value of $2.71. Last fiscal year, the company paid $1.40 in form of dividends to shareholders.

Market Valuation:
Here are the price ratios of the company: The P/E ratio is 10.18, P/S ratio 1.26 and P/B ratio 1.48. Dividend Yield: 5.21 percent. The beta ratio is 0.40.


NextEra Energy (NYSE:NEE) has a market capitalization of $26.17 billion. The company employs 15,000 people, generates revenues of $15,341.00 million and has a net income of $1,923.00 million. The firm’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) amounts to $4,909.00 million. Because of these figures, the EBITDA margin is 32.00 percent (operating margin 21.78 percent and the net profit margin finally 12.54 percent).

Financial Analysis:
The total debt representing 40.16 percent of the company’s assets and the total debt in relation to the equity amounts to 153.70 percent. Due to the financial situation, a return on equity of 13.08 percent was realized. Twelve trailing months earnings per share reached a value of $4.59. Last fiscal year, the company paid $2.20 in form of dividends to shareholders.

Market Valuation:
Here are the price ratios of the company: The P/E ratio is 13.70, P/S ratio 1.71 and P/B ratio 1.75. Dividend Yield: 3.82 percent. The beta ratio is 0.55.



EQT Corporation (NYSE:EQT) has a market capitalization of $7.34 billion. The company employs 1,835 people, generates revenues of $1,639.93 million and has a net income of $479.77 million. The firm’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) amounts to $1,007.79 million. Because of these figures, the EBITDA margin is 61.45 percent (operating margin 40.76 percent and the net profit margin finally 29.26 percent).

Financial Analysis:
The total debt representing 31.31 percent of the company’s assets and the total debt in relation to the equity amounts to 76.43 percent. Due to the financial situation, a return on equity of 14.38 percent was realized. Twelve trailing months earnings per share reached a value of $3.19. Last fiscal year, the company paid $0.88 in form of dividends to shareholders.

Market Valuation:
Here are the price ratios of the company: The P/E ratio is 15.37, P/S ratio 4.48 and P/B ratio 2.04. Dividend Yield: 1.79 percent. The beta ratio is 0.80.




Take a closer look at the full table of utilities with accelerated earnings growth. The average price to earnings ratio (P/E ratio) amounts to 16.38 and forward P/E ratio is 17.65. The dividend yield has a value of 3.57 percent. Price to book ratio is 2.02 and price to sales ratio 2.05. The operating margin amounts to 23.84 percent. Sales increased 22.12 percent compared to the figures from the same quarter last year (7.62 percent 5-year average) and the earnings per share grew 56.07 percent quarter over quarter (6.84 percent 5-year average).

Here is the full table with some fundamentals (TTM):

Related stock ticker symbols:
CPL, PPL, HE, WR, POR, TRP, NEE, OKE, SWX, ITC, EQT, ELP