Vistra VST reported fourth-quarter 2024 earnings of $1.14 per share, which missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.17 by 47.5%. In the year-ago quarter, the company reported a loss of 48 cents per share.

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Total Revenues of VST

Sales for the quarter totaled $4.04 billion, which missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $4.61 billion by 12.4%. However, the top line increased 31.1% from $3.08 billion recorded in the year-ago quarter.

Full-year 2024 revenues totaled $17.2 billion compared with $14.8 billion last year.

VST’s Operational Highlights

Fuel, purchased power costs and delivery fees for the year amounted to $7.3 billion, down 3.9% from last year’s $7.6 billion.

Operating costs for the year totaled $2.4 billion, up 41.1% from last year’s $1.7 billion.

Selling, general and administrative expenses amounted to $1.6 billion, up 23% from last year’s $1.3 billion.

Operating income totaled $4.1 billion compared with $2.7 billion a year ago.

As of Feb. 24, 2025, Vistra executed $4.9 billion in share repurchases since November 2021. Vistra had 338.9 million shares outstanding, representing a 30% reduction of the amount of the shares outstanding on Nov. 2, 2021 and $1.9 billion dollars of the share repurchase authorization remains available, which it expects to complete by year-end 2026.

VST’s Financial Highlights

Cash and cash equivalents totaled $1.22 billion as of Dec. 31, 2024, compared with $3.5 billion as of Dec. 31, 2023.

Net cash flow provided by operating activities in 2024 totaled $4.6 billion compared with $5.4 billion last year.

Total capital expenditures for 2024 totaled $2.1 billion compared with $1.7 billion recorded a year ago.

VST’s Guidance

The company continues to expect its 2025 ongoing operations adjusted EBITDA and ongoing operations adjusted Free Cash Flow Before Growth to be in the band of $5.5-$6.1 billion and $3.0-$3.6 billion, respectively.

VST’s Zacks Rank

The company currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Recent Utility Releases

Eversource Energy ES reported fourth-quarter 2024 adjusted earnings of $1.01 per share, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 99 cents by 2%.

ES’ long-term (three to five years) earnings growth rate is 5.66%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2025 sales is pinned at $12.91 billion, implying a year-over-year increase of 8.5%.

DTE Energy Company DTE reported fourth-quarter 2024 operating earnings per share of $1.51, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.46 by 3.4%.

DTE’s long-term earnings growth rate is 7.57%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2025 sales is pinned at $12.98 billion, implying a year-over-year increase of 4.2%.

Exelon Corporation’s EXC fourth-quarter 2024 earnings of 64 cents per share surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 59 cents by 8.5%.

EXC’s long-term earnings growth rate is 5.71%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2025 sales is pinned at $23.8 billion, implying a year-over-year increase of 3.4%.

 

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