Southern Co. (SO)
Utilities · NYSE · US
Fundamentals
Valuation and ratings
Southern Co. trades at $96.07, which is 60% above the $38.24 our discounted cash flow model puts on the business. On that measure it screens as expensive, which is not the same as saying it will fall.
Our moat model scores it 58 out of 100, which is a moat, but not a deep one. A moat is a structural reason competitors cannot take the profits away, and it matters more to a long holding period than any single quarter's numbers do.
It changes hands at 24.5 times earnings. Be careful reading that in isolation: for a cyclical business a low P/E arrives at the top of the cycle, when profits are peaking and about to fall, which is exactly when the shares look cheapest and are not.
About Southern Co.
The Southern Company, through its subsidiaries, engages in the sale of electricity. The company offers electric service to retail customers and wholesale customers; and energy-related products and services to natural gas choice markets. It also develops, constructs, acquires, owns, operates, and manages power generation assets, as well as battery energy storage projects; sells electricity at market-based rates in the wholesale market; and deploys microgrids for commercial, industrial, governmental, and utility customers. In addition, the company is involved in the distribution of natural gas in Illinois, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee; distributes energy and resilience solutions; and invests in telecommunications. The Southern Company was incorporated in 1945 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
SO passes 2 of our 30 screens today
Each screen prints the exact criteria it used, and the circumstances in which it is wrong.
Smart money ownership
5 of the funds we track reported a position in their latest SEC 13F filing. Largest first:
- Capital Research Global, Capital Research Global Investors$252.36M · 0.0% of book
- Marshall Wace, MARSHALL WACE, LLP$225.29M · 0.2% of book
- Ken Griffin, CITADEL ADVISORS LLC$86.38M · 0.0% of book
- Arrowstreet Capital, ARROWSTREET CAPITAL, LIMITED PARTNERSHIP$54.04M · 0.0% of book
- Israel Englander, MILLENNIUM MANAGEMENT LLC$44.25M · 0.0% of book
A word of warning on reading these figures: a 13F reports the market value of a holding, so a fund that traded nothing at all still appears to have sold when the price fell. We found 102 companies where the standard reading gives the opposite answer. Only the share count is honest.
Common questions
Is Southern Co. (SO) undervalued?
Against our discounted cash flow estimate of $38.24, SO at $96.07 is 60% above fair value. That is one model's answer, not a recommendation, and most of a DCF's output sits in a terminal value nobody can forecast.
Which funds own SO?
5 of the institutions we track reported a position in SO in their most recent SEC 13F filing. A 13F is filed up to 45 days after quarter end, so it tells you what a fund held then, not what it holds now.
What is SO's P/E ratio?
SO trades at 24.5 times earnings. A low P/E is not automatically cheap: on a cyclical company it is usually a warning that earnings are at a peak.
The full research page for SO, with financial statements, ownership detail, peer comparison and alerts, is free inside the app.
Data from company filings, exchange quotes and SEC EDGAR 13F disclosures. Quotes are delayed. Metrics we do not have are left out rather than estimated. Educational information, not financial advice.