Reasons to Add Pampa Energia Stock to Your Portfolio Right Now

Pampa Energia S.A.'s PAM strategic investments continue to maintain asset quality and help expand its generation portfolio. The company benefits from its efforts to expand its operations in the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity in Argentina. Given its strong growth, PAM makes for a solid investment option in the utility sector.

Let's focus on the factors that make this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company a strong investment option at the moment.

PAM's Growth Projections & Surprise History

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Pampa Energia's 2024 earnings per share has moved up 20.6% to $9.54 in the past 60 days.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2024 sales is pinned at $1.88 billion, indicating year-over-year growth of 8.5%.

The company delivered an average earnings surprise of 62% in the past four quarters.

PAM's Return on Equity (ROE)

ROE indicates how efficiently a company has been utilizing its funds to generate higher returns. Currently, Pampa Energia's ROE is 12.59%, higher than the industry's average of 10.34%. This indicates that the company has been utilizing its shareholders' funds more constructively (to generate income) than its peers in the electric power utility industry.

PAM's Debt Position

Currently, PAM's total debt to capital is 34.73%, better than the industry's average of 60.86%.

The time-to-interest earned ratio at the end of the second quarter of 2024 was 2.8. The ratio, being greater than one, reflects the company's ability to meet future interest obligations without difficulties.

PAM's Liquidity

Its current ratio of 2.33 is better than the industry's average of 0.85. A current ratio greater than one indicates that the company has enough short-term assets to liquidate for covering all short-term liabilities, if necessary.

PAM's Focus on Clean Power Generation

Since 2018, Pampa Energia has been actively developing wind energy, establishing itself as one of Argentina's leading renewable energy companies. It continues to add more renewable power through inorganic growth and development of MAT ER projects. During the second quarter of 2024, the company's net power generation was 5,067 gigawatt-hour, including hydro, wind and thermal.

Its PEPE VI project is expected to add 140 megawatts of wind power. The total completion is expected by October 2024. PAM's investment of more than $250 million should bring its total installed wind power capacity to 427 MW, positioning it as one of the country's leading renewable power producers.

PAM's Stock Price Performance

In the past three months, Pampa Energia's shares have risen 31% compared with the industry's 12% growth.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Other Stocks to Consider

A few other top-ranked stocks from the same industry are DTE Energy DTE, Evergy EVRG and Xcel Energy XEL, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2.

DTE's long-term (three to five years) earnings growth rate is 8.14%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2024 EPS implies a year-over-year increase of 16.9%.

EVRG's long-term earnings growth rate is 5.85%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2024 EPS implies year-over-year growth of 8.8%.

XEL's long-term earnings growth rate is 6.39%. The company delivered an average earnings surprise of 0.7% in the past four quarters.

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