Duke Energy (DUK) PT Raised to $122 at Mizuho

Mizuho analyst Anthony Crowdell raised the price target on Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) to $122.00 (from $118.00) while maintaining a Outperform rating.

The analyst commented: "Late last week our top idea, DUK, reported 4Q earnings and provided 2025 guidance that came in ‾$0.04 below street expectations. We continue to view DUK as a premium regulated utility, and we believe street estimates were overly optimistic. We believe investors should focus on is a 100% regulated utility, no wildfire risk, no major regulatory filings in 2025, a bump (50 bps) in rate base growth to 7.7%, 5-7% EPS CAGR with a bias towards the high-end by 2027, and most importantly, a focus on the balance sheet. DUK finished 2024 90 bps above their Baa2 downgrade threshold (13%) and expects to improve above 14% over their 5-year plan with the recently announced $6.5B (over 5Y) ATM program. Duke is trading at a ‾2% P/E premium, and we expect the stock to re-rate to a 10% P/E premium as investors focus on the resiliency of the plan."

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