KeyBanc上调Ameren和Duke评级，称数据中心大负荷用电可带来公用事业增长上修

Ameren (AEE) up 0.9% in Thursday's trading as KeyBanc upgrades the utility to Overweight from Sector Weight with a $122 price target, saying increasing visibility around incremental load growth could position the company for a meaningful earnings growth revision as early as this fall.
While Ameren's (AEE) service territory has seen limited participation in the recent wave of large-load customer demand, KeyBanc analyst Sophie Karp thinks the dynamic may be starting to shift following several recent announcements.
The pace of large-load activity in Missouri has increased meaningfully recently, with ~2.8 GW of energy service agreements executed by Ameren (AEE) in recent months, representing demand that materially exceeds what is currently embedded in the company’s long-term outlook, the analyst says.
For investors searching for the "next ETR—namely, a utility with the potential to secure material growth upgrades and drive a corresponding multiple re-rating"—Karp "believes Ameren (AEE) offers one of the most compelling opportunities in the sector.
The analyst also upgrades Duke Energy (DUK) to Overweight with a $139 PT, believing interest in more defensive names with undemanding valuations will increase in the coming quarters, and Duke stands out as the most attractive defensive name in the bank's coverage universe.
Duke (DUK) continues to guide to a 5%-7% EPS growth trajectory, which seems ordinary in an environment where many utilities are targeting 9%-plus earnings growth, but Karp says the lower growth reflects Duke's scale rather than any fundamental disadvantages in its territory, adding that she sees potential for an inflection in the growth outlook toward the end of the decade as large load customers continue to favor the U.S. Southeast.
Karp continues to like Entergy's (ETR) growth opportunities driven by large load customer growth, and its overall low regulatory risk profile, while Xcel Energy (XEL) remains attractively valued relative to its fundamentals, also noting materially diminished regulatory risks across its territories since the company has reached settlements in all of its major ongoing rate cases.
The analyst also sees Entergy (ETR) and NiSource (NI) as best positioned to capitalize on data center load growth, as both have differentiated themselves through their ability to capture meaningful load growth while mitigating concerns related to customer affordability and political scrutiny.