Thursday March 15 11:39 AM ET
Wall Street Ups Outlook for IPPs
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street analysts on Thursday raised their 2001 and 2002 earnings outlooks for independent power producers, creating a bright spot amid the gloom of profit warnings.
Goldman's Raleigh also raised 12-month price targets on Calpine Corp. (NYSE:CPN - news) to $80, NRG Energy Inc.(NYSE:NRG - news) to $39, PPL Corp. (NYSE:PPL - news) to $59, Exelon Corp. (NYSE:EXC - news) to $78 and Constellation Energy Group Inc. (NYSE:CEG - news) to $62.
Calpine shares were up $2.47, or 5.5 percent, at $47.17 on the NYSE, while NRG was up 87 cents, or 3.1 percent, at $28.87. Exelon rose $1.17, or 1.9 percent, to $63.39, and Constellation added 58 cents, or 1.4 percent, to $43.10.
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Thursday March 15, 12:02 pm Eastern Time
RESEARCH ALERT-Lehman upgrades Mirant to strong buy
NEW YORK, March 15 (Reuters) - Lehman Brothers said Thursday utility analyst Daniel Ford upgraded Mirant Corp. (NYSE:MIR - news) to a strong buy from buy with a new price target of $34, up from $31, citing the power producer's raised earnings guidance for 2001.
The analyst also raised his earnings per share estimates for 2001 to $1.55 from $1.22 and for 2002 to $1.70 from $1.45.
``We believe that this is the first of several earnings uprates for the (independent power producer sector) in 2001. Our other favorites are:'' Calpine (NYSE:CPN - news), NRG Energy (NYSE:NRG - news) and Dynegy (NYSE:DYN - news). |
