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Research Alert: CFRA Maintains Buy Opinion On Shares Of Duke Energy Corporation

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-- CFRA, an independent research provider, has providedwith the following research alert. Analysts at CFRA have summarized their opinion as follows:

We keep our 12-month target at $144, 21.5x our next-12-month EPS view, a premium to its five-year average of 18.4x and roughly in line with peers. We trim our 2026 EPS view by $0.01 to $6.70 and initiate our 2027 EPS view at $7.16. DUK has secured ~ 7.6 GW of electric service agreements with data center customers, with 5 GW already under construction. This provides substantial visibility into accelerating load growth, with overall electric demand expected to rise from 1.5%-2.0% in 2026 to 3%-4% over 2027-2030, and Carolinas load growth of 4%-5% over the same period. We anticipate a 6.7% EPS CAGR from 2025 to 2028, below the expected electric utilities group median of 7.9%. We also think dividend growth will lag peers over the same period, as we expect a 3.9% CAGR vs. the expected group median of 5.2%. Despite somewhat weaker near-term EPS and dividend growth expectations, we think DUK can achieve a higher multiple due to attractive customer and electric sales growth trends in DUK's service territory.

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