American Water Works (NYSE:AWK) Issues FY24 Earnings Guidance

American Water Works (NYSE:AWK) updated its FY24 earnings guidance on Wednesday. The company provided EPS guidance of $5.25-5.30 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of $5.27. American Water Works also updated its FY25 guidance to $5.65-5.75 EPS.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

AWK has been the topic of several recent research reports. Wolfe Research raised shares of American Water Works to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. Wells Fargo & Company downgraded American Water Works from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and upped their target price for the stock from $127.00 to $138.00 in a research note on Wednesday, July 31st. Mizuho cut American Water Works from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $131.00 to $140.00 in a research report on Tuesday, October 15th. Royal Bank of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $164.00 price objective on shares of American Water Works in a research report on Thursday, September 19th. Finally, Bank of America reaffirmed an “underperform” rating and set a $140.00 target price on shares of American Water Works in a report on Friday, September 20th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $140.00.

American Water Works Price Performance

Shares of AWK stock traded down $0.11 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $135.69. 1,329,842 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,193,866. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $142.95 and a two-hundred day moving average of $136.10. American Water Works has a fifty-two week low of $113.34 and a fifty-two week high of $150.68. The firm has a market cap of $26.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.66, a P/E/G ratio of 3.28 and a beta of 0.69. The company has a quick ratio of 0.58, a current ratio of 0.64 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.24.

American Water Works (NYSE:AWK) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The utilities provider reported $1.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.47 by ($0.05). American Water Works had a net margin of 21.93% and a return on equity of 9.60%. The company had revenue of $1.15 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.10 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.44 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts forecast that American Water Works will post 5.27 EPS for the current year.

American Water Works Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th will be paid a dividend of $0.765 per share. This represents a $3.06 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.26%. American Water Works’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 62.32%.

Insider Buying and Selling at American Water Works

In other news, Director Martha Clark Goss sold 710 shares of American Water Works stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $142.85, for a total value of $101,423.50. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 36,880 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,268,308. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Insiders own 0.08% of the company’s stock.

American Water Works Company Profile

American Water Works Company, Inc, through its subsidiaries, provides water and wastewater services in the United States. It offers water and wastewater services to approximately 1,700 communities in 14 states serving approximately 3.5 million active customers. The company serves residential customers; commercial customers, including food and beverage providers, commercial property developers and proprietors, and energy suppliers; fire service and private fire customers; industrial customers, such as large-scale manufacturers, mining, and production operations; public authorities comprising government buildings and other public sector facilities, such as schools and universities; and other utilities and community water and wastewater systems.