JP Morgan On Electric Utilities

JP Morgan has issued a research report on Electric Utilities for 3Q earnings outlook and estimates. In the report, JP Morgan writes "We expect electric utility stocks to avoid the inverse performance the stocks saw versus the S&P 500 earlier this year, when the UTY fell by ~3% while the S&P 500 rose 3.5% through 5/12/2010. Effectively, we believe the group behaved as a contrarian trade versus the broader market. In our view, this was partly fueled by the continued pressure on utility EPS until 2Q10. 2Q10 utility earnings, however, were strong, resulting in positive commentary from companies as well as increased EPS guidance. We expect 3Q10 results to be strong as well, and to support the group into year-end. Accordingly, we do not expect utilities to fall if the S&P rallies, although we acknowledge that utilities are likely to lag any rally in the S&P 500 given the sector offers less EPS growth than many other sectors and trades at a beta of less than 1." Companies related to this report include: Ameren Corp.

$29.24 American Electric Power Company

$36.33 CenterPoint Energy

$16.15 Consolidated Edison

$49.09 Dominion Resources

$44.92 Duke Energy Corporation

$17.65 Edison International

$35.97 Entergy Corporation

$77.46 Exelon Corporation

$44.01 NextEra Energy

$55.82 PG&E Corporation

$47.21 Progress Energy

$44.97 The Southern Company

$37.95 Wisconsin Energy Corporation

$58.73 Xcel Energy

$23.76