Another Utility Misses Estimates (ETR, D, AEP, CHK)

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Apr 27, 4:08PM EDT · Published May 4, 8:11AM EDT

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power-lines-image Entergy Corporation (NYSE:ETR) joined the ranks of electricity generators that haven’t been able to reach consensus estimates for the first quarter of 2009.The company’s results resemble the earlier reports from Dominion Resources, Inc. (NYSE:D) and American Electric Power Co. Inc. (NYSE:AEP), where lower demand, especially from industrial customers, really hurt sales.

The company reported EPS of $1.20, 23% below EPS for the same period last year, and more than 10% below average estimates of $1.35. Revenues for the quarter reached $2.79 billion, well below average estimates of $3.07 billion.

Entergy’s sales to industrial customers was off by 13.2% from the same period a year ago. AEP reported declines averaging 15% in industrial demand.

Entergy has reaffirmed its EPS guidance for 2009 at $6.70-$7.30, “assuming a business-as-usual operation for the full year.” What makes the company think that 2009 will reflect business-as-usual?

Entergy’s shares are unchanged this morning, at $66.90/share. The 52-week range is $59.87-$123.27.

Paul Ausick
May 4, 2009

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.