Shares of Exelon (EXC) jumped 0.3 % during today's afternoon session, bringing their 52 week performance to -0.0%. The stock seems to be overvalued in terms of traditional metrics, but in this day in age, we believe that a complete stock analysis should also take into account the company's mixed growth prospects and mixed market sentiment.
Exelon Corporation, a utility services holding company, engages in the energy distribution and transmission businesses in the United States and Canada. The large-cap Utilities company is based in Chicago, United States and has 19,063 full time employees.
EXC's P/E Ratio Is Comparable to its Sector Average
Compared to the Utilities sector's average of 22.89, Exelon has a trailing twelve month price to earnings (P/E) ratio of 19.2 and an expected P/E ratio of 16.5. P/E ratios are calculated by dividing the company's share price by either its trailing 12 month ($2.14) or forward earnings per share ($2.5).
Earnings is another term for the net profits left over after subtracting cost of goods sold, taxes, and operating costs from the company's recorded sales revenue. One way of looking at the P/E ratio is that it represents how much investors are willing to pay for every dollar's worth of the company's earnings. Since Exelon's P/E ratio is near its sector average of 22.89, we can deduce that the market is fairly valuing the company's earnings.
Exelon Is Overvalued in Terms of Expected Growth
Exelon's PEG ratio is 2.76. This metric represents the company's earnings per share divided by its expected growth ratio, and is a useful complement to the price to earnings analysis, because it factors in growth to the valuation. A PEG ratio around or below 1 implies that the market in fairly valuing the company in terms of its growth estimates. But when the PEG ratio is higher, as in Exelon's case, it tells us the company is overvalued.
EXC Has an Average P/B Ratio
Traditionally, stock pickers used to focus primarily on finding issues that were trading significantly below their tangible asset value, to guarantee themselves a margin of safety. But such an approach would screen out many valuable securities because many profitable businesses -- especially those that heavily leverage information technology -- simply do not have many tangible assets compared to more capital intensive companies.
Therefore, modern value investors tend to focus less on absolute price to book value (P/B) ratios. Instead of singling out stocks with a P/B ratio of less than 1, they will compare the target company against its peer group. For Exelon, the P/B value is 1.63 while the average for the Utilities sector is 1.03.
EXC's Weak Cash Flow Generation Is Troubling
The table below shows that Exelon is not generating enough cash. A well run company will generally have cash flows that reflect the strength of its underlying business, and in Exelon's case, free cash flow is growing at an average rate of 0.0% with a coefficient of variability of 15595333327.4%. We can also see that cash flows from operations are evolving at a 0.0% rate, versus 0.0%:
| Date Reported | Cash Flow from Operations ($ k) | Capital expenditures ($ k) | Free Cash Flow ($ k) | YoY Growth (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-02-14 | 4,870,000 | -6,643,000 | 11,513,000 | 221.23 |
| 2022-02-25 | 3,012,000 | -572,000 | 3,584,000 | -59.71 |
| 2021-02-24 | 4,235,000 | -4,661,000 | 8,896,000 | -35.79 |
| 2020-02-11 | 6,659,000 | -7,195,000 | 13,854,000 | 87.6 |
| 2019-02-08 | 8,644,000 | 1,259,000 | 7,385,000 | -50.25 |
| 2018-02-09 | 7,480,000 | -7,365,000 | 14,845,000 |
Exelon's Margins Are Strong
If you buy a stock for the long run, you want the underlying business model to be profitable. Gross margins tell you how much profit the company generates compared to the cost of revenue, which is the cost directly related to providing Exelon's goods and services. Operating margins, on the other hand, tell you how much of these profits the company keeps after you take overhead into account.
Exelon's Gross Margins
| Date Reported | Revenue ($ k) | Cost of Revenue ($ k) | Gross Margins (%) | YoY Growth (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-02-14 | 19,078,000 | -6,373,000 | 67 | 4.69 |
| 2022-02-25 | 17,938,000 | -6,385,000 | 64 | -3.03 |
| 2021-02-24 | 16,663,000 | -5,721,000 | 66 | 20.0 |
| 2020-02-11 | 34,438,000 | -15,497,000 | 55 | -36.05 |
| 2019-02-08 | 35,978,000 | -4,991,000 | 86 | 50.88 |
| 2018-02-09 | 33,565,000 | -14,035,000 | 57 |
Exelon's Operating Margins
| Date Reported | Total Revenue ($ k) | Operating Expenses ($ k) | Operating Margins (%) | YoY Growth (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-02-14 | 19,078,000 | -9,388,000 | 17 | 13.33 |
| 2022-02-25 | 17,938,000 | -8,871,000 | 15 | 15.38 |
| 2021-02-24 | 16,663,000 | -8,764,000 | 13 | 0.0 |
| 2020-02-11 | 34,438,000 | -14,599,000 | 13 | -69.77 |
| 2019-02-08 | 35,978,000 | -15,473,000 | 43 | 258.33 |
| 2018-02-09 | 33,565,000 | -15,584,000 | 12 |
Exelon's cost of revenue is growing at a rate of -0.0% in contrast to 1.9% for operating expenses. Sales revenues, on the other hand, have experienced a 0.0% growth rate. As a result, the average gross margins growth is -0.1 and the average operating margins growth rate is 6.4, with coefficients of variability of 16.7% and 63.6% respectively.
Exelon Benefits From Positive Market Signals
The market sentiment regarding Exelon is overwhelmingly positive. The stock has an average rating of buy and target prices ranging from $48.0 to $39.0. EXC is trading -7.93% away from its target price of $44.72. 1.4% of the company's shares are tied to short positions, and 85.2% of the shares are held by institutional investors.
| Date Reported | Holder | Percentage | Shares | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-06-30 | Wellington Management Group, LLP | 9% | 90,844,170 | $3,740,508,630 |
| 2023-06-30 | Vanguard Group Inc | 9% | 90,335,712 | $3,719,572,872 |
| 2023-06-30 | Blackrock Inc. | 9% | 86,731,996 | $3,571,189,869 |
| 2023-06-30 | State Street Corporation | 6% | 62,856,389 | $2,588,111,769 |
| 2023-06-30 | Bank Of New York Mellon Corporation | 2% | 21,390,309 | $880,745,956 |
| 2023-06-30 | T. Rowe Price Investment Management, Inc. | 2% | 21,211,931 | $873,401,242 |
| 2023-06-30 | Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft | 2% | 20,024,542 | $824,510,501 |
| 2023-06-30 | Massachusetts Financial Services Co. | 2% | 19,849,920 | $817,320,440 |
| 2023-06-30 | Geode Capital Management, LLC | 2% | 18,931,213 | $779,492,680 |
| 2023-06-30 | Morgan Stanley | 2% | 17,487,413 | $720,044,216 |
