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How to buy FirstEnergy stock | 31.69
Own FirstEnergy stock in just a few minutes.
FirstEnergy Corp is an utilities—diversified business based in the US. FirstEnergy shares (FE) are listed on the NYSE and all prices are listed in US Dollars. FirstEnergy employs 12,000 staff and has a trailing 12-month revenue of around USD$10.7 billion.
How to buy shares in FirstEnergy
- Compare share trading platforms. If you're a beginner, look for a platform with low commissions, expert ratings and investment tools to track your portfolio. Narrow down top brands with our comparison table.
- Open and fund your brokerage account. Complete an application with your personal and financial details, like your ID and bank information. Fund your account with a bank transfer, credit card or debit card.
- Search for FirstEnergy Find the stock by name or ticker symbol: FE. Research its history to confirm it's a solid investment against your financial goals.
- Purchase now or later. Buy today with a market order or use a limit order to delay your purchase until FirstEnergy reaches your desired price. To spread out your purchase, look into dollar-cost averaging, which smooths out buying at consistent intervals and amounts.
- Decide on how many to buy. At last close price of USD$31.69, weigh your budget against a diversified portfolio that can minimize risk through the market's ups and downs. You may be able to buy a fractional share of FirstEnergy, depending on your broker.
- Check in on your investment. Congratulations, you own a part of FirstEnergy. Optimize your portfolio by tracking how your stock — and even the business — performs with an eye on the long term. You may be eligible for dividends and shareholder voting rights on directors and management that can affect your stock.
What's in this guide?
- FE shares summary
- Compare share dealing platforms
- Is FE stock a buy or sell?
- Stock performance over time
- Can I short FE shares?
- Is FE suitable for ethical investing?
- Are FE shares over-valued?
- FirstEnergy's financials
- How volatile are FE shares?
- Does FirstEnergy pay a dividend?
- Have FE shares ever split?
- Other common questions
How has coronavirus impacted FirstEnergy's share price?
Since the stock market crash in March caused by coronavirus, FirstEnergy's share price has had significant negative movement.
Its last market close was USD$31.69, which is 38.55% down on its pre-crash value of USD$51.57 and 0.98% down on the lowest point reached during the March crash when the shares fell as low as USD$32.
If you had bought USD$1,000 worth of FirstEnergy shares at the start of February 2020, those shares would have been worth USD$644.55 at the bottom of the March crash, and if you held on to them, then as of the last market close they'd be worth USD$615.42.
FirstEnergy share price
Use our graph to track the performance of FE stocks over time.FirstEnergy shares at a glance
Information last updated 2020-10-13.
| Latest market close | USD$31.69 |
|---|---|
| 52-week range | USD$22.85 - USD$52.515 |
| 50-day moving average | USD$29.1386 |
| 200-day moving average | USD$36.0414 |
| Wall St. target price | USD$38.82 |
| PE ratio | 31.5354 |
| Dividend yield | USD$1.56 (4.99%) |
| Earnings per share (TTM) | USD$1.23 |
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Is it a good time to buy FirstEnergy stock?
The technical analysis gauge below displays real-time ratings for the timeframes you select. This is not a recommendation, however. It represents a technical analysis based on the most popular technical indicators: Moving Averages, Oscillators and Pivots. Finder might not concur and takes no responsibility.
This chart is not advice or a guarantee of success. Rather, it gauges the real-time recommendations of three popular technical indicators: moving averages, oscillators and pivots. Finder is not responsible for how your stock performs.
FirstEnergy price performance over time
Historical closes compared with the close of $31.69 from 2020-10-16
| 1 week (2020-10-13) | 1.21% |
|---|---|
| 1 month (2020-09-18) | 9.43% |
| 3 months (2020-07-20) | -23.19% |
| 6 months (2020-04-20) | -28.77% |
| 1 year (2019-10-18) | -34.50% |
|---|---|
| 2 years (2018-10-19) | -18.43% |
| 3 years (2017-10-20) | -1.37% |
| 5 years (2015-10-20) | -2.88% |
Is FirstEnergy under- or over-valued?
Valuing FirstEnergy stock is incredibly difficult, and any metric has to be viewed as part of a bigger picture of FirstEnergy's overall performance. However, analysts commonly use some key metrics to help gauge the value of a stock.
FirstEnergy's P/E ratio
FirstEnergy's current share price divided by its per-share earnings (EPS) over a 12-month period gives a "trailing price/earnings ratio" of roughly 32x. In other words, FirstEnergy shares trade at around 32x recent earnings.
That's relatively high compared to, say, the trailing 12-month P/E ratio for the NASDAQ 100 at the end of 2019 (27.29). The high P/E ratio could mean that investors are optimistic about the outlook for the shares or simply that they're over-valued.
FirstEnergy's PEG ratio
FirstEnergy's "price/earnings-to-growth ratio" can be calculated by dividing its P/E ratio by its growth – to give 3.112. A low ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer better value, while a higher ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer worse value.
The PEG ratio provides a broader view than just the P/E ratio, as it gives more insight into FirstEnergy's future profitability. By accounting for growth, it could also help you if you're comparing the share prices of multiple high-growth companies.
FirstEnergy's EBITDA
FirstEnergy's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) is USD$2.4 billion.
The EBITDA is a measure of a FirstEnergy's overall financial performance and is widely used to measure a its profitability.
FirstEnergy financials
| Revenue TTM | USD$10.7 billion |
|---|---|
| Operating margin TTM | 11.67% |
| Gross profit TTM | USD$7.7 billion |
| Return on assets TTM | 1.87% |
| Return on equity TTM | 7.48% |
| Profit margin | 6.21% |
| Book value | $13.176 |
| Market capitalisation | USD$16.9 billion |
TTM: trailing 12 months
Shorting FirstEnergy shares
There are currently 10.4 million FirstEnergy shares held short by investors – that's known as FirstEnergy's "short interest". This figure is 12% down from 11.9 million last month.
There are a few different ways that this level of interest in shorting FirstEnergy shares can be evaluated.
FirstEnergy's "short interest ratio" (SIR)
FirstEnergy's "short interest ratio" (SIR) is the quantity of FirstEnergy shares currently shorted divided by the average quantity of FirstEnergy shares traded daily (recently around 4.7 million). FirstEnergy's SIR currently stands at 2.24. In other words for every 100,000 FirstEnergy shares traded daily on the market, roughly 2240 shares are currently held short.
However FirstEnergy's short interest can also be evaluated against the total number of FirstEnergy shares, or, against the total number of tradable FirstEnergy shares (the shares that aren't held by "insiders" or major long-term shareholders – also known as the "float"). In this case FirstEnergy's short interest could be expressed as 0.02% of the outstanding shares (for every 100,000 FirstEnergy shares in existence, roughly 20 shares are currently held short) or 0.0277% of the tradable shares (for every 100,000 tradable FirstEnergy shares, roughly 28 shares are currently held short).
Such a low SIR usually points to an optimistic outlook for the share price, with fewer people currently willing to bet against FirstEnergy.
Find out more about how you can short FirstEnergy stock.
FirstEnergy's environmental, social and governance track record
Environmental, social and governance (known as ESG) criteria are a set of three factors used to measure the sustainability and social impact of companies like FirstEnergy.
When it comes to ESG scores, lower is better, and lower scores are generally associated with lower risk for would-be investors.
FirstEnergy's total ESG risk score
Total ESG risk: 41.25
Socially conscious investors use ESG scores to screen how an investment aligns with their worldview, and FirstEnergy's overall score of 41.25 (as at 10/01/2020) is pretty weak – landing it in it in the 86th percentile of companies rated in the same sector.
ESG scores are increasingly used to estimate the level of risk a company like FirstEnergy is exposed to within the areas of "environmental" (carbon footprint, resource use etc.), "social" (health and safety, human rights etc.), and "governance" (anti-corruption, tax transparency etc.).
FirstEnergy's environmental score
Environmental score: 19.37/100
FirstEnergy's environmental score of 19.37 puts it squarely in the 5th percentile of companies rated in the same sector. This could suggest that FirstEnergy is a leader in its sector terms of its environmental impact, and exposed to a lower level of risk.
FirstEnergy's social score
Social score: 16.32/100
FirstEnergy's social score of 16.32 puts it squarely in the 5th percentile of companies rated in the same sector. This could suggest that FirstEnergy is a leader in its sector when it comes to taking good care of its workforce and the communities it impacts.
FirstEnergy's governance score
Governance score: 10.56/100
FirstEnergy's governance score puts it squarely in the 5th percentile of companies rated in the same sector. That could suggest that FirstEnergy is a leader in its sector when it comes to responsible management and strategy, and exposed to a lower level of risk.
FirstEnergy's controversy score
Controversy score: 3/5
ESG scores also evaluate any incidences of controversy that a company has been involved in. FirstEnergy scored a 3 out of 5 for controversy – a middle-of-the-table result reflecting that FirstEnergy hasn't always managed to keep its nose clean.
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) summary
FirstEnergy Corp was last rated for ESG on: 2020-10-01.
| Total ESG score | 41.25 |
|---|---|
| Total ESG percentile | 85.94 |
| Environmental score | 19.37 |
| Environmental score percentile | 5 |
| Social score | 16.32 |
| Social score percentile | 5 |
| Governance score | 10.56 |
| Governance score percentile | 5 |
| Level of controversy | 3 |
FirstEnergy share dividends
Dividend payout ratio: 61.42% of net profits
Recently FirstEnergy has paid out, on average, around 61.42% of net profits as dividends. That has enabled analysts to estimate a "forward annual dividend yield" of 4.99% of the current stock value. This means that over a year, based on recent payouts (which are sadly no guarantee of future payouts), FirstEnergy shareholders could enjoy a 4.99% return on their shares, in the form of dividend payments. In FirstEnergy's case, that would currently equate to about $1.56 per share.
FirstEnergy's payout ratio would broadly be considered high, and as such this stock could appeal to those looking to generate an income. Bear in mind however that companies should normally also look to re-invest a decent amount of net profits to ensure future growth.
FirstEnergy's most recent dividend payout was on 1 December 2020. The latest dividend was paid out to all shareholders who bought their shares by 5 November 2020 (the "ex-dividend date").
Have FirstEnergy's shares ever split?
FirstEnergy's shares were split on a 1:3 basis on 4 April 2003. So if you had owned 3 shares the day before before the split, the next day you'd have owned 1 share. This wouldn't directly have changed the overall worth of your FirstEnergy shares – just the quantity. However, indirectly, the new 200% higher share price could have impacted the market appetite for FirstEnergy shares which in turn could have impacted FirstEnergy's share price.
FirstEnergy share price volatility
Over the last 12 months, FirstEnergy's shares have ranged in value from as little as $22.85 up to $52.515. A popular way to gauge a stock's volatility is its "beta".
Beta is a measure of a share's volatility in relation to the market. The market (NYSE average) beta is 1, while FirstEnergy's is 0.2609. This would suggest that FirstEnergy's shares are less volatile than average (for this exchange).
FirstEnergy overview
FirstEnergy Corp., through its subsidiaries, generates, transmits, and distributes electricity in the United States. The company operates through Regulated Distribution and Regulated Transmission segments. It owns and operates coal-fired, nuclear, hydroelectric, natural gas, wind, and solar power generating facilities. The company also provides energy-related products and services to retail and wholesale customers. It operates 24,486 circuit miles of overhead and underground transmission lines; and electric distribution systems, including 269,691 miles of overhead pole line and underground conduit carrying primary, secondary, and street lighting circuits, as well as owns substations with a total installed transformer capacity of approximately 156,115,196 kilovolt-amperes. The company serves approximately six million customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York. FirstEnergy Corp. was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Akron, Ohio.
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