Allegheny Energy (AYE) has beaten the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate of 55 cents by four cents to clock earnings per share of 59 cents in the third quarter of fiscal 2009. Allegheny Energy also crossed the year-ago EPS by five cents due to improved result from its Delivery & Services business. Earnings rose to $31.5 million from $4.3 million in the year-ago quarter. The improvement was due to increased cost recovery in Virginia , the elimination of an inter-company transfer payment and higher revenues from transmission expansion. These benefits were partially offset by lower retail electricity sales and higher income taxes, primarily due to an increase in pre-tax income. However this was partially offset by lower earnings at the Generation and Marketing business. Here, earnings fell to $45.5 million from $84.7 million in the year-ago quarter due to a tepid economy and low power prices. Earnings ...

Allegheny Energy, Inc. (AYE) recently announced that its unregulated power generation subsidiary Allegheny Energy Supply Company, LLC (AE Supply) bagged a new $1 billion senior unsecured revolving credit facility with a three-year maturity. Allegheny plans to use the money from the new credit facility for general corporate purposes and capital expenditure for its unregulated plants. The new credit facility will increase and replace AE Supply’s existing $400 million revolving credit facility, which was scheduled to mature in May 2011. The withdrawals under this credit facility will bear interest that is calculated based on the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) along with a margin based on AE Supply’s senior unsecured credit rating. As of now the margin on LIBOR-based loans is 3.5%. Allegheny is focused on strengthening its liquidity position and improve its financial flexibility by reducing interest burden. The company in recent times has concentrated on ...

Allegheny Energy, Inc.’s (AYE) electric delivery business unit, Allegheny Power, yesterday filed a petition with the Public Service Commission of West Virginia for the recovery of its fuel and purchased power in the state. Allegheny Power consists of Allegheny Energy’s three regulated electric utilities – Monongahela Power Company, The Potomac Edison Company and West Penn Power Company. The filing is in line with company’s aim to improve the bottom line in each state of its service area. The company has already been approved higher generation rates in Pennsylvania and Maryland, while in Virginia its request for recovery of purchased power costs has been granted. Allegheny Power proposed recovery of incurred costs of $82 million for fuel and purchased power, and to recover projected costs of $61 million from the state regulatory commission. If approved, the new rates would be effective January 1, 2010. This will inflate ...

Entergy Corporation (ETR) announced fiscal second-quarter EPS of $1.23 that was just a cent short of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.24. However year-over-year EPS fell 23 cents, the pain came from higher refueling and outages (both planned and unplanned) at its nuclear power plants.   New Orleans-based Entergy is primarily engaged in electric power production and retail distribution operations. The company owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000MW of electricity generating capacity. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.7 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

The company with a cumulative capacity of 8,000MW is the second largest nuclear power generator in the U.S. Entergy operates through five subsidiaries: Entergy Arkansas, Entergy Gulf States, Entergy Louisiana, Entergy Mississippi and Entergy New Orleans.   Entergy’s revenues fell 22.8% year over year to $2.5 billion in the quarter with Electricity (down 24%), Natural Gas (down 46.6%), and Competitive businesses (down

...

Allegheny Energy (AYE) missed the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate of $0.44 by three cents in the second quarter of fiscal 2009. The company also fell short of the year-ago EPS by four cents due to lower industrial demand and output from coal-based units. Coal-based units utilized 14% lower capacity during the quarter compared to the prior-year period.

Headquartered in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, Allegheny Energy is engaged in both regulated electricity and natural gas distribution utility operations as well as in unregulated wholesale energy markets. The company operates through two business segments: the low margin Delivery & Services and the high margin Generation & Marketing.

The Delivery & Services unit consists of three regulated electric utilities, which operate electric transmission and distribution systems and a natural gas distribution system. This segment provides electricity to 1.6 million customers in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia.

The Generation & Marketing division comprises

...

Highlighted stocks include Sempra Energy (SRE), Allegheny Energy, inc. (AYE), The Hershey Company (HSY), Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. (ETP).Given where the bottom-up analyst forecasts are for the S&P 500 -- currently at about $62.50 for 2009 -- and the rate of decline of the forecasts, it seems likely that the eventual actual earnings for the S&P 500 will be about $50. This refers to operating earnings, excluding one time charges and gains.There will be far more charges than gains, so the level of reported earnings will be well south of $50. We will most likely see a bit of an economic recovery in 2010, but it will be anemic. As with 2009, the bottom-up forecast is both far too optimistic and falling fast. It currently stands at $78.34.  Based on a much longer time frame, ...

Highlighted in the following post are Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Colgate Palmolive (CL), Allegheny Energy (AYE) and Edison International (EIX).In the fourth quarter of 2008, the U.S. economy contracted at an annual rate of 3.8%, the worst showing since 1982. However, this was much better than the 5.5% decline that most economists (including myself) were expecting.The difference came from 2 areas, and they form a dark cloud within the silver lining of the better-than-expected numbers. The first area was inventories, which added 1.32 growth points, after adding 0.84 growth points in the third quarter. Since in this environment it seems unlikely that businesses were adding to their stockpile in anticipation of higher sales ahead, the increase in inventories was involuntary — it was simply consumer demand dropping faster than production. It seems likely that inventories will reverse in the first quarter, …

Tudor Hedge FundTudor Hedge Fund 13F Holdings AnalysisThis post is being written as part of HedgeFundBlogger.com's Investment Securities Tool which analyzes the holdings of hedge fund managers.Next up in the macro hedge fund tracking series we have Tudor Investment Corp, the brainchild of Paul Tudor Jones. Taken from Wikipedia, the bio of PTJ is as follows: "In 1980 he founded Tudor Investment Corporation which is today a leading asset management firm headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut. The Tudor Group, which consists of Tudor Investment Corporation and its affiliates, is involved in active trading, investing and research in the global equity, venture capital, debt, currency and commodity markets. One of Jones' earliest and major successes was predicting Black Monday in 1987, tripling his money during the event due to large short positions. Jones uses a global macro ...