PPL last August announced plans to sell its U.K. utility operations, which generate a little over half of the firm's earnings. No deal has been announced yet, but the fate of PPL's regular dividend depends on how much of these earnings management can replace by using some of the proceeds from a potential sale to [...]

Macro headwinds, slow-moving restructuring plans, and mounting legal liabilities have weighed on 3M's performance since CEO Michael Roman took the top job in July 2018. On Tuesday, the industrial conglomerate reported earnings which gave investors more confidence in 3M's plan to return to profitable growth following sales and earnings declines the last two years. Organic sales grew 6% in [...]

IBM shares slumped 10% on Friday following the company's fourth-quarter earnings report. IBM's organic sales fell 8%, marking the fourth straight quarterly decline, but investors were most concerned by a 7% drop in the Cloud & Cognitive Software segment. This high-margin division accounts for roughly 50% of IBM's gross profit and will become an even larger [...]

In December, International Paper announced plans to spin off the firm's printing papers business into a standalone, publicly traded company. The spin-off is expected to be completed late in the third quarter of 2021, at which time shares in the spin-off will be distributed to International Paper investors. The transaction is expected to be tax-free for U.S. [...]

The defensive utility sector has trailed the S&P 500 by more than 15% over the past year. Shares of Con Edison have been especially weak, slumping around 15% since mid-November to reach a level not far from their pandemic lows seen last March. With Con Edison's valuation looking unusually cheap compared to historical norms, some [...]