PPL Corp (NYSE:PPL) is a utility that has operations in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and the U.K. Based on its ability to pay the current dividend and increase it at a 4% rate for the next several years, the current market price is a good opportunity for dividend growth investors.
What did I think of PPL last time?
I last wrote about PPL back at the end of February. At the time the company was performing as expected. That made the dividend increase even more attractive. As a dividend growth investor I liked hearing that management was still committed to increasing the dividend at a 4% rate until 2020 at least. I also thought the PPL was poised to take advantage of any changes in taxes on over-seas profits, but that train has yet to leave the station.
Since I last wrote about PPL, I spent $3000 of new money to buy more shares to add just over 79 shares. I have been reinvesting the dividends. Those new shares have caused my dividend payment to increase as well. I now have 139.2 shares with a cost basis of $36.91.
What new information do we have now?
Looking at the Q2 earnings presentation slides, I can get a comparison to how the company was performing back in February. Below is the current quarter's version of the slide I found so impressive back in February.
Clearly PPL didn't do as well in the latest quarter compared to a year ago. Unlike back in February, where earnings were up in all 4 prior year comparisons, in Q2 earnings are down versus a year ago. In part that is because 2016 was a really good year. I will need to dig deeper and find out what the problems are.
The slide above shows where the biggest
