Tag Archives: industry

Upbeat Aerospace And Defense Results Lift ETFs

A major part of the first-quarter earnings season is behind us and a combination of factors including oil price turbulence and global growth uncertainties have weighed on the results . Despite headwinds, aerospace and defense, a relatively smaller sector within the S&P 500, held up well this past quarter. However, it’s not surprising given the low estimates, which had fallen ahead of this reporting cycle. Aerospace and defense stocks have reported better-than-expected results despite sluggish growth numbers. As per the Zacks Earnings Trend report , earnings declined 6.6% while revenues increased 3.8% year over year. The earnings beat ratio of the aerospace and defense companies is 77.8%, while the revenue beat is 88.9% . The U.S. defense sector performed modestly on the back of elevated geopolitical risk, a recovering U.S. economy and strong commercial sales. Escalating geo-political tensions in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Syria have forced several countries to step up their defense, in turn boosting demand for defense products. Moreover, the aerospace and defense industry has gained from fleet renewals at airlines worldwide. Demand for more fuel-efficient aircraft, a growing international market and increasing application of unmanned aircraft in warfare today have driven up sales in this sector. Below we have highlighted in greater detail the earnings of some of the major aerospace and defense companies which really drive this sector’s outlook. Quarterly Earnings in Focus Pentagon’s prime contractor, Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT ), reported an encouraging first quarter. It reported better-than-expected earnings and revenues with both beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.8% and 5.5%, respectively. Lockheed Martin raised its 2016 outlook and now expects earnings of about $11.50–$11.80 per share (earlier projection: $11.45–$11.75) on revenues of approximately $49.6 billion to $51.1 billion (earlier projection: $49.5 billion to $51 billion). The stock jumped after the earnings release on solid outlook, impressive revenue growth and potential share buybacks. Aerospace giant, The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA ) delivered first-quarter 2016 adjusted earnings of $1.74 per share, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 3.9%. Earnings also decreased 12% year over year. Revenues came in at $22.63 billion for the quarter, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $21.24 billion and increasing 2% from the year-ago level. For 2016, the company still expects earnings to be in the range of $8.15−$8.35 per share on revenues of $93−$95 billion. Investors reacted positively to the company’s results. Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE: NOC ) reported upbeat first-quarter 2016 results with revenues and earnings beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.8% and 12.1%, respectively. The maker of the current B-2 bomber and Global Hawk unmanned planes expects earnings to be in the range of $10.40 to $10.70 per share (prior projection: $9.90–$10.20) on revenues of $23.5 billion to $24 billion in 2016. The stock gained significantly after the company released its results. General Dynamics Corp. ’s (NYSE: GD ) first quarter earnings of $2.34 per share topped both the Zacks Consensus Estimate and the year-ago figure of $2.14 by 9.3%. Revenues of $7.7 billion beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.4% benefiting from strong demand for defense products during the quarter. Investors reacted positively with the stock gaining after the company released its results. United Technologies Corporation (NYSE: UTX ) reported first-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.47 per share, up 2.1% year over year. The figure also surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.39. Quarterly revenues of $13.4 billion also beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $13 billion. However, volatility in foreign currency adversely impacted the revenues of most of the company’s segments during the reported quarter. The company reaffirmed its 2016 guidance. The stock gained post releasing results. ETFs to Play The gains in aerospace and defense companies have put the spotlight on their ETFs. Below, we have these ETFs in detail: iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF (NYSEARCA: ITA ) The fund, tracking the Dow Jones U.S. Select Aerospace & Defense Index, holds 37 securities in its basket with Boeing, United Technologies, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman being the top five stocks. All of them together account for more than 38% of the fund assets. With an asset base of nearly $682.7 million, the fund trades in moderate volumes of roughly 83,000 shares a day and charges an annual fee of 45 bps per year. The fund returned 1.25% in the last 10 days (as of May 5, 2016) and has a Zacks ETF Rank #3 (Hold) with a Medium risk outlook . PowerShares Aerospace & Defense Portfolio (NYSEARCA: PPA ) PPA follows the SPADE Defense Index, with 50 companies involved in the development, manufacturing, operations and support of U.S. defense, homeland security and aerospace operations. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, United Technologies, General Dynamic and Northrop Grumman are among the top 10 holdings and together occupy almost one third of total fund assets. The product has managed to garner nearly $296 million in assets so far and trades in an average volume of 76,000 shares per day. It charges 66 bps in annual fees and gained 0.40% in past 10 days. It currently carries a Zacks ETF Rank #3 with a Medium risk outlook. SPDR S&P Aerospace & Defense ETF (NYSEARCA: XAR ) XAR tracks the S&P Aerospace and Defense Select Industry index, holding a basket of 33 stocks. Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and Boeing score among the top 10 holdings. This product has attracted an AUM of nearly $166.9 million and exchanges nearly 18,000 shares in hand per day. It charges 35 bps in fees per year and gained 1% in the past 10 days. The fund has a Zacks ETF Rank #3 with a Medium risk outlook . Original post

Exelon (EXC) Christopher M. Crane on Q1 2016 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

Exelon Corp. (NYSE: EXC ) Q1 2016 Earnings Call May 06, 2016 11:00 am ET Executives Dan L. Eggers – Senior Vice President-Investor Relations Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP Joseph Nigro – Executive Vice President, Exelon; Chief Executive Officer, Constellation, Exelon Corp. Analysts Steve Fleishman – Wolfe Research LLC Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC Praful Mehta – Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. (Broker) Operator Good morning and welcome to the Exelon Corporation’s Q1 2016 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Prasanthi and I’ll be facilitating the audio portion of today’s – and active broadcast. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. For those of you on this stream, please take note of the options available in your event console. At this time, I would like to turn the show over to Dan Eggers, Senior Vice President of Investors Relations. Dan L. Eggers – Senior Vice President-Investor Relations Thank you, Prasanthi. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our first quarter 2016 earnings conference call. Leading the call today are Chris Crane, Exelon’s President and Chief Executive Officer; and Jack Thayer, Exelon’s Chief Financial Officer. They are joined by other members of Exelon’s senior management team who will be available to answer your questions following our prepared remarks. We issued our earnings release this morning along with the presentation, both of which can be found in the Investor Relations section of the Exelon’s website. The earnings release and other matters which we discuss during today’s call contain forward-looking statements and estimates that are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ from our forward-looking statements based on factors and assumptions discussed in today’s material, comments made during this call, and our Risk Factors section in the earnings release, and the 10-Q, which we expect to file on May 10. Please refer to today’s 8-K, the 10-Q, and Exelon’s other filings for a discussion of factors that may cause results to differ from management’s projections, forecasts and expectations. Today’s presentation also includes references to adjusted operating earnings and other non-GAAP measures. Please refer to the information contained in the appendix of our presentation and our earnings release for a reconciliation between the non-GAAP measures to the nearest equivalent GAAP measures. We’ve scheduled 45 minutes for today’s call. I’ll now turn the call over to Chris Crane, Exelon’s CEO. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Good morning. Thanks for joining us this morning. Once again we had a great quarter financially, where we closed near the upper end of the range even with the milder weather. And operationally, our utilities and plants continue to operate at high levels. The big news for the quarter is we closed the Pepco Holdings transaction in March. We are excited to have Pepco utilities as part of the Exelon family. We know this has been a long journey and it took much longer than any of us anticipated, but we appreciate the patience of our investors as we pursued the merger. Our employees who worked tirelessly from the inception to the completion of the deal and the many stakeholders who’ve supported was critical to getting the deal done. PHI is an important piece of our strategy to become a more regulated company with more stable earnings streams. While we are still in the early stages of integrating PHI, PHI’s earnings outlook is consistent, if not better, than what we showed you at EEI. It brings meaningful benefits to our customers, communities in Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, including bill credits and reliability investments. More than $500 million in total commitments have been made and will be achieved due to this merger. We’re now focused on integrating Pepco into Exelon. We will bring our management model and our best practices to improve the experience of our customers. The transaction confirms Exelon’s role as a leader in the industry. We serve 10 million customers, more than any other utility company. We will spend nearly $23 billion in capital across our utilities and generating business over the next three years, which is the second-highest among our peers. We are the largest pure T&D by rate base and within the top five when including rate base generation. We are the second-largest generator of electricity in the country, the largest competitor by a factor of nearly two, while producing power at the lowest carbon intensity of any large generator. We are the leader in the retail electric provider in the country serving 139 terawatts. The culture of the industry leadership is found throughout our organization, positioning us very well for the future. Switching to operational performance. Our first quarter operating performance was strong and we’re on track for a strong year. At our legacy utilities, our SAIFI and CAIDI are on track to meet reliability targets; we are in top quartile in both. At the GenCo, our nuclear plants ran at a capacity factor of 95.8%, our solar and wind assets outperformed their energy capture targets. Switching to Illinois in the nuclear plants. While there is much to celebrate this quarter, we also need to make tough decisions on the future of Clinton and Quad Cities nuclear stations in Illinois. The board has given me authority to go forward with early retirements for Clinton and Quad Cities plants, if for Clinton adequate legislation is not passed during the spring legislative session that is scheduled to end May 31, and if for Quad Cities adequate legislation is not passed and the plant does not clear the upcoming PJM auction. Otherwise, we plan to retire Clinton on June 1, 2017, and Quad Cities on June 1, 2018. This is consistent with planned refueling outage and capacity market obligations. We committed to our employees, our shareholders and the communities to try to find a path to profitability for our distressed assets. This is because these plants are vital to the communities that they are located in and provide economic and environmental value to the state. The state’s own analysis showed that closing Clinton and Quad Cities would result in $1.2 billion in lost economic activity and 4,200 jobs lost, and a significant reduction of supply of reliable electricity for Illinois residents and businesses. We worked hard over the last few years to find a path to sustainable profitability. To bring $120 million in strategic capital to these plants, we’ve pursued legislation and regulatory market changes. We’ve been successful in some areas: the PJM market reforms that were put into place last year, the cost reductions that we’ve achieved, and the large number of stakeholders who have worked so hard to help in this fight. We have strong allies in our cause, our employees, our plant communities, the bill sponsors and co-sponsors, our partners in labor, and our vendors among others. I want to thank them all very much for their support and regret the impact on this decision that we have on them. But for reasons outside of our control, we have not seen progress in Illinois policy reforms, also the Supreme Court stay creates uncertainty regarding the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. Power prices have fallen to a 15-year low in PJM, causing the economics of Clinton and Quad Cities to further deteriorate. These plants have lost $800 million in cash flow from 2009 to 2015. Just to be clear, we are not covering our operating costs or our risks, let alone receiving a return on our invested capital. We’ve done all we can up to this point and we continue to work through the spring legislative session to enact the much needed reforms. However, without adequate legislation we no longer see a path to profitability and no longer can sustain the ongoing losses. On a more positive note, we continue to see a pathway to reform in New York where Governor Cuomo, the legislature, the Public Service Commission have recognized a need to preserve the state’s nuclear plants. New York is quickly moving forward to implement a clean energy standard that will allow us to continue to operate our challenged Ginna and Nine Mile plants. I’ll turn the call over to Jack to discuss the first quarter results further. Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. My remarks today will cover our first quarter results, 2016 guidance, update our gross margin disclosures and provide an update on developments since Q4. I’ll start on slide eight. As Chris stated, we had a strong quarter financially and operationally across the company. For the first quarter we delivered adjusted non-GAAP operating earnings of $0.68 per share, near the top of our guidance range of $0.60 per share to $0.70 per share. This compares to $0.71 per share for the first quarter of 2015. Exelon’s utilities delivered a combined $0.37 per share. During the quarter, we saw unfavorable mild weather at PECO and ComEd versus planned, which was partially offset by lower bad debt expense at BGE. There are only eight days of PHI included in our results, which had a minimal impact on the quarter. Generation had a great quarter, earning $0.34 per share. We had strong performance from our nuclear assets with better capacity factors than budgeted. And while weak power prices and lower volatility were a drag, our Constellation team delivered strong results. Our generation to load matching strategy continues to provide value and we benefited from a lower cost to serve our customers. For the second quarter, we are providing guidance of $0.50 to $0.60 per share. This compares to our realized earnings of $0.59 per share for the second quarter of 2015. The appendix contains details on our first quarter financial results compared to the first quarter of 2015 results by operating company on slide 16 and 17. Turning to slide nine, we are affirming our full-year guidance range of $2.40 to $2.70 per share which now includes the contribution from PHI and assumes an average of 926 million shares outstanding for 2016. This should help calibrate your segment models. On slide 10, we are still working through a comprehensive financial plan now that we have closed the PHI deal, but want to address the pieces that we can today. We are reaffirming our earnings growth at our legacy utilities of 7% to 9% per year from 2015 to 2018. On PHI, we are still working through the plan, but see the contribution equal to or better than what we showed you at EEI and consistent with sustaining our 7% to 9% utility growth target. On slide 11, to meet these growth targets we are going to be busy on the regulatory front. The PHI utilities have been out of rate cases for at least two years. We are continuing to invest $800 million per year to improve reliability and customer service leading to the low-earned ROEs that we show on slide 30 in the appendix. However, by the third quarter, we plan to file distribution cases in all of PHI’s jurisdictions and expect decisions in all cases by the middle of next year providing needed revenue release. Atlantic City Electric and Pepco Maryland have already filed their cases. ACE filed an electric distribution base rate case on March 22 with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities requesting an $84 million revenue increase and a 10.6% return on equity. It also included PowerAhead, a five-year $176 million grid resiliency plan. On April 19, Pepco requested a rate increase of $127 million with the Maryland’s Public Service Commission. The rate cases include smart meter recovery and a two-year $32 million grid resiliency plan. In addition to reducing the number and length of outages, Pepco’s five-year smart grid program is generating nearly $4 in customer benefits for every $1 invested. In addition, ComEd made its annual formula rate filing with the Illinois Commerce Commission. ComEd requested a revenue requirement increase of $138 million reflecting approximately $2.4 billion in capital investments made in 2015. Those investments, which included $663 million for smart grid-related work has helped strengthen and modernize the electric system, resulting in record power reliability and customer satisfaction, operational savings, and new ways to save on electric bills for ComEd customers. More details on the rate cases can be found on slide 33 – slides 34 through 37 in the appendix. Slide 12 provides our first quarter gross margin update. In 2016 total gross margin is flat to our last disclosure. During the quarter we executed on $200 million of power new business and $100 million of non-power new business. We are highly hedged for the rest of this year and well-balanced on our generation to load matching strategy. Total gross margin decreased in the first quarter by $150 million in 2017 and $200 million in 2018, as PJM power prices moved approximately $1.60 to $2.10 lower since the beginning of the year. We ended the quarter approximately 5% to 8% behind ratable in both of these years when considering cross-commodity hedges with a majority of modeling concentrated in the Midwest to align to our fundamental view of spot market upside at NiHub. Power prices have risen since the start of the second quarter and we are timing our hedging activity to lock in the value of the recent price increases while remaining well positioned to capture our fundamental view. On slide 13, I wanted to give you a quick update on some tax implications that are associated with the completion of the PHI merger. With the inclusion of PHI, we expect to realize $700 million to $850 million of additional cash from 2017 to 2019 related to legacy NOLs and the impacts of bonus depreciation. However, now, as a very modest cash tax payer for 2018, we have less ability to take the domestic production activities deduction, or DPAD, in 2018 which effectively increases our overall consolidated tax rate by as much as 200 basis points or the equivalent of $0.06 to $0.08 per share in 2018. Although this is a one-time negative impact to 2018 ExGen earnings, it comes with significant positive cash flow and we expect to return to normalized tax rates in 2019. With the variability of interest rates, I’d like to remind you that ComEd’s allowed ROE is based on a 30-year treasury rate plus 580 basis points, and thus sensitive to moves in this rate. Every 25 basis point move in treasury rates results in a $0.01 move in EPS. Before turning the call over to Chris, I wanted to raise a few scheduling points. We’ll be hosting an Analyst Day on August 10 in Philadelphia and we’ll get details around shortly. Therefore, we will not be having a second quarter earnings call and will release earnings before Analyst Day. I will now turn the call back to Chris for his closing remarks. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Thanks, Jack. Just closing out on slide 14, the capital allocation philosophy. I want to cover that before we turn it over to Q&A, and take a moment to reiterate our capital allocation philosophy. Balance sheet strength remains a top financial priority. We have a strong strategy to deliver stable growth, sustainable earnings, and an attractive dividend to our shareholders. We will be growing that dividend at 2.5% each year for the next three years, starting with the dividend payable in June. From a capital deployment perspective, we will continue to harvest free cash flow from the generation business to invest primarily in our utilities to benefit our customers, invest in long-term contracted assets which meet our return requirements, and return capital to our shareholders. This is the right strategy for our markets and our assets. Thanks and we’ll open the line up now for your questions. Question-and-Answer Session Operator And we do have audio question from Stephen Byrd (17:13). Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Hey, Steve (17:15). Unknown Speaker Start on the Illinois legislation. And wonder if you could speak to the breadth of support that you have for the proposal. And then also if you could just go through the mechanics of if it was implemented, how it’d work? So we can start to think about modeling the impacts. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Joe, you want to cover that? Joseph Nigro – Executive Vice President, Exelon; Chief Executive Officer, Constellation, Exelon Corp. Sure. Steve (17:36), the support is the same support we had for the original bill, labor, the host communities. And in addition, we now have the support of some groups that represent climate scientists and others that are concerned with greenhouse gas emissions. In terms of how the program would work, let me just start with a policy analogy that I think all of you are familiar with. Existing state RPS programs for renewables provide compensation of qualified resources through renewable energy credits, RECs. The REC value is the difference between available wholesale revenues and the costs needed to keep the existing renewables in operation and get new renewables built. All this is done in order to get the benefit of greenhouse gas reductions while protecting customers. If wholesale revenues go up, the needed REC payment goes down. We see that happening every day in REC spot markets. The ZEC program is designed the same way. It’s a payment for the state value of zero emission credits from nuclear plants which represents the difference between the needed revenues and the costs of operating the plants. In the case of the New York and Illinois programs, the way it would work is that experts at the Commissions will determine on a prospective basis the cost of operating the plants plus risks, less available market revenues. And where there is a delta between that, in other words where the costs and risks are not covered by available market revenues, the ZEC program will kick in and provide compensation for greenhouse gas avoidance. The program is not a PPA or a contractor difference. If revenues or costs are different, there is no true-up. And – so, Steve (19:26), I think if you have additional questions, perhaps after the call we could work with Dan and Emily to set up a meeting, go through more programmatic details. Unknown Speaker That’s great. That’s a great start. Thank you. And then just shifting over to renewables more broadly, could you just speak to your degree of appetite for more acquisitions? It sounds like you’ll be a full taxpayer, I believe, in 2019, if I have that correct. But just broadly, what degree of opportunities do you see out there in renewables? Is this an area that you would expect that you’ll see further growth in? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director It is definitely throttled based off of our tax capacity and we are looking at that now. You do get a certain amount of dilution with delaying the benefits of the tax attributes of the project, so we have some projects in the pipeline now and are re-evaluating others to see if they’re – they would be viable to go forward in the near-term. Unknown Speaker Understood. Thank you very much. Operator And your next question comes from the line of Steve Fleishman. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Hi, Steve. Steve Fleishman – Wolfe Research LLC Hi. Good morning. A couple of – first, a logistical question. The Ginna $101 million that you mentioned that you’re getting, is that – is kind of a trued-up amount including past years, is that in your guidance for this year? Or is that kind of like a one-time item or how are you treating that? Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP Steve, that’s in our guidance. Steve Fleishman – Wolfe Research LLC Okay. Including any back from prior periods? Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP That’s correct. Steve Fleishman – Wolfe Research LLC Okay. And then a question just – is there any way you can give us some sense on the cash flow or losses from Clinton and Quad Cities, let’s say, in your guidance for last year or something of that sort? Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP So we’ve stated that it’s greater than $800 million since 2009. There are some variables in there on cash savings going forward or cash losses going forward, power prices coming down, cost cutting initiatives; and we do have an element of overheads that would not be as controllable. So you would see the run rate to be similar to what has happened in the past. Steve Fleishman – Wolfe Research LLC Okay. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Steve, you know, on this point – so for 2017, the cost exceeded available market revenues or at current marks (22:12) by $140 million. But I think importantly and Joe raised this point, it’s not the whole picture. The closure also avoids millions of dollars in basis and unit-contingent risks that we face by operating the plants. And stated differently, in order to reverse course we need Illinois as well as New York to provide a structure that allows us to cover our cash costs plus normal operating risks in order to reverse this course. Steve Fleishman – Wolfe Research LLC Okay. And $140 million that’s kind of cash flow? Does that include like CapEx, or is that just kind of cash flow without CapEx? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director That’s cash flow. Steve Fleishman – Wolfe Research LLC Okay. One last question just on the – in the event legislation doesn’t happen and you need to shut the plants, what – is there any cost related to that? Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP As you saw in the K, and we reiterate in the Q, there is some unfunded liabilities on the decommissioning trust. Those numbers are in there at full 100% ownership of the plants. And so the way that we would have to handle that is – you know, you can start out with parent guarantees, but you have to have it funded over a 10-year period, I think 60% by the end of the fifth year, and then the rest by the end of the 10 years. Steve Fleishman – Wolfe Research LLC Okay. Those numbers in the K are still good then, so that we just can use those? Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP They’re updated in the Q. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director That’ll be coming Tuesday. Steve Fleishman – Wolfe Research LLC Okay. Thank you. Operator And your next question comes from the line of Jonathan Arnold. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Hey, good morning, guys. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Good Morning. Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP Good Morning. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Just to clarify one thing on the current proposal that I think was emerged last night around the legislation. So originally this applies to all nuclear plants in the state, but is it correct that this would just be Clinton and Quad? And can you just explain how that works in terms of the discussion of the ZEC structure? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Joe? Joseph Nigro – Executive Vice President, Exelon; Chief Executive Officer, Constellation, Exelon Corp. Sure. Jonathan, all plants could apply, but quite obviously the only plants that would receive revenue under this program would be those where the costs exceed the revenues. And so there is – it’s a 20 terawatt-hour cap which has enough room in it to accommodate Clinton and Quad Cities. And our expectation is that Exelon would seek to have those two plants participate. The other plants would not participate. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Okay. And that’s sort of nuanced in how the legislation’s worded effectively? Joseph Nigro – Executive Vice President, Exelon; Chief Executive Officer, Constellation, Exelon Corp. That’s correct. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Okay. Joseph Nigro – Executive Vice President, Exelon; Chief Executive Officer, Constellation, Exelon Corp. It’s the same offer to you, Jonathan; if you’d like, after the call, we could sit down and work through some of the details. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Okay. That’ll be great. And is there any… Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director And, Jonathan, just to interject just to make the clear point, they would provide the opportunity to be compensated for cost plus risk. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Okay. That was one thing. The second thing, in your fourth quarter deck, you have this forecast around leverage ratios and the like going out through 2018, which, I believe, was assuming that Pepco would not happen. This was of the ExGen. Can you give us a sense of how that progression would look if you kind of market to the – with Pepco scenario? Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP Sure. So, Jonathan, we still anticipate reducing leverage of ExGen by $3 billion over the five-year planning period, albeit this is not to the extend that we would have under the standalone scenario, because ExGen’s free cash flow is now being deployed to help fund PHI’s capital spending program. And we’ll provide more detail on the puts and takes of that at the Analyst Day in August. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. So $3 billion is kind of the new ExGen delevering number? Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP That’s right. That’s over the next five years, we have a large maturity. And I believe it’s 2019, that we would look to retire at maturity. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Okay. So that’s over five years? Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP That’s correct. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. And then the 2.3 ExGen debt-to-EBITDA that you were looking at for 2018, roughly what does that look like now? Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP It, over the five-year period, would go to right around three times. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. So that’s again over five years, rather than three years? Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP That’s correct. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Okay, great. Thank you. And then I guess you mentioned in the prepared remarks the prices have rebounded… Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP So, Jonathan – sorry, just let me correct, 2.7 times at the end of the five-year period. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. So whereas you have 2.3 times in 2018, it’s now 2.7 times after five years? Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP Yes. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Okay, great. Thank you. And then you mentioned that prices have rebounded. So can you give us a rough sense of how the kind of gross margin mark would look if you use more like today’s prices? Joseph Nigro – Executive Vice President, Exelon; Chief Executive Officer, Constellation, Exelon Corp. Yeah. Jonathan, good morning. It’s Joe Nigro. I think if you look at our hedge disclosure at the end of the quarter and then factor in the changes since the end of March, you would see all of that drop in 2017 and 2018 being recovered. We’ve seen an appreciable move, as you know, in prices since the end of March. We’re actually higher in NiHub than we were at the end of the year. We’re higher at West Hub than we were at the end of the year, so we would have recovered all that drop and probably adding to it. We calculated that a couple of days ago, but the market has continued to move higher, so we probably have seen it actually go over where it ended the quarter. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Great. Okay. That’s it. Thank you very much, guys. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Thanks. Operator And your next question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith. Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC Yeah. Hi. Good morning. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Good morning. Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC So perhaps to follow up on the same theme, can you elaborate a little bit on the balance of the nuclear portfolio that is ex-Clinton, ex-Quad? How you think about their cash flow profile? And if you don’t get this legislation, what the prospects are for further rationalization? I don’t mean to jump the gun too much here, but just talking about the future a little bit more? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director So there’s varying cash flows by assets depending on their location. They are positive at this point. If you look at the other units that are more challenged, you’re looking at Ginna and Nine Mile. One – we know about Oyster Creek and it’s coming up in 2019, the other one that has a real focus on it right now is Three Mile Island. Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC Got it. And specific to Illinois, is there any commentary around – so let’s say we don’t get it in 2016 or 2017, does that trigger another set of reviews? Again, not to push it too much. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director At this point we’ll have to watch the capacity auction clearing in the out years. It’s tight on energy at some of the assets, but they are positive. Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC Got it. Okay, great. And then turning back to the utilities real quickly, can you comment, or I’m curious, if you will, what the earned ROEs embedded at Pepco for 2016 – just what’s the baseline on the Pepco side as far as you see it post the close? Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP Julien, in terms of – I think we included it on slide, I believe it’s 30, the earned for 2015. Obviously, while we’re in the pendency period during the rate cases that – obviously, there’s regulatory lag, so we’re going to see that decline, but we’ll have a much deeper dive in the PHI as part of the August 10 meeting. You can see on slide 29 the rate base statistics and I think can work through some assumptions on regulatory lag using that information. Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC Got it. And perhaps not to jump the gun too much on the Analyst Day, but what is the thought process on the baseline for a future regulated CAGR? Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP I think the thought is the 7% to 9% that we confirmed on the call and PHI is absolutely consistent with that expectation. We, as we mentioned, are seeing improvement relative to what we forecasted or projected at EEI using PHI’s internal forecast. And Dennis and team continue to work to identify further opportunities around efficiency as well as regulatory policy to work to get those earned and allowed ROEs in line with the success we’ve experienced within Maryland, Pennsylvania and Illinois. Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC Got it. You wouldn’t roll it forward though? Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP I’m not certain I understand what do you mean roll it forward? Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC The 7% to 9%, just roll it forward to CAGR off a 2016 base? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director We’ll address that at the Analyst Day. Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC All right. No worries. Thank you. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director I mean, embedded in there is 7% to 9% through 2018, so just thinking it through, it’s in there. Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC Got it. Thank you. Operator And your next question comes from the line of Brian Chen (32:25). Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Hey, Brian (32:30). Unknown Speaker Going over to slide 13, the EPS impact that you’ve laid out in that top table, I just want to verify that that is not including the use of capital from that positive cash flow impact that you’ve got on the second row right? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director That’s right, Brian (32:46). Unknown Speaker Okay. Great. And then I just want to verify that Quad Cities didn’t clear in the 2018 and 2019 auction, correct? So the closure of Quad Cities shouldn’t have any sort of residual obligation that you have for the 2018, 2019 capacity through (33:03)? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director That’s correct. Unknown Speaker Great. Thanks a lot. Operator And your next audio question comes from Praful Mehta. Praful Mehta – Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. (Broker) Hi, guys. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Good morning. Praful Mehta – Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. (Broker) Good morning. So just on the leverage a little bit, just to ensure we understand both at the holding company level and at ExGen. You’ve kind of talked about the ExGen debt and what you see over the 20 – the five year period. How are you looking at holding company debt given the leverage you’ve assumed post Pepco transactions? Is there any objective to delever a little bit at the holding company as well? Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP So Praful, as you’ve heard us comment in the past, we do target at 20% FFO to debt on a consolidated basis and that was one of the benefits of adding PHI to the Exelon family. And so we will certainly be looking at our leverage ratios at the GenCo. I think you’ll also see us consider to the extend we have available cash at the holding company as well, we just need to see as we get further out what the realized power prices are and what the free cash flow coming off of the GenCo is in those five years. Praful Mehta – Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. (Broker) Got you. And just so if you think about from the sources/uses perspective, the source is primarily out of ExGen coming to fund CapEx at the utilities and then deleveraging both at ExGen and the parent. Is that a fair way to think of it or is there some cash generation coming out of the utilities as well over the next two year, three year period? Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP I would say, on a net basis, utilities are consumers of cash. So you’re correct. That ExGen cash flow as well as debt raise at the utilities is the primary source for funding the significant CapEx that we see, $25 billion over the next five years at the utilities. Praful Mehta – Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. (Broker) Got you. Thank you. And then just finally, we saw that the power new business and the to-go business, the EBITDA, or the growth margin of that is going from $250 million in 2016 up to about a $1 billion by 2018. Could you just give us a little bit of context of what’s driving that significant ramp-up in that side of the business? Joseph Nigro – Executive Vice President, Exelon; Chief Executive Officer, Constellation, Exelon Corp. Yeah. Hi. It’s Joe Nigro. That’s pretty standard shape that we have. If you go back and look at disclosures over the years, you would expect to see much less new business in the prompt years – in the prompt year, in this case 2016, than you would in the out years, for example, in 2017 and 2018. Embedded in that power new business is things like the execution of our retail business and the margins associated with that. So as we get closer to the swap period more and more of those contracts get layered in, we begin to reduce that bucket of power new business. I mean, there’s other elements of our business that follow that same timing shape, so this isn’t unique in the sense of seeing a ramp up between the prompt year to two years forward and we’re very comfortable with the numbers that we’ve put out there. Praful Mehta – Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. (Broker) Got you. Thank you so much guys. Operator And this does conclude today’s conference call. You may now disconnect. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Thank you. 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Solid Q1 Earnings Fail To Boost Pharma ETFs

Like the past several quarters, the healthcare sector has impressed with strong Q1 earnings. This is especially true as total earnings for 79.2% of the sector’s total market capitalization are up 8.8% on revenue growth of 11.2%, with earnings and revenue beat ratios of 80% and 70%, respectively. In fact, healthcare is the fourth best performing sector in terms of earnings growth trailing autos, construction, and consumer discretionary. Among the most notable players, Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ ) was the first major drug company to report earnings on April 19, followed by Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY ) and Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY ) on April 26 and April 28, respectively. Two other major U.S. drug companies – Pfizer (NYSE: PFE ) and Merck (NYSE: MRK ) – reported on May 3 and May 5, respectively. These industry primes posted solid results raising their full-year outlook that boosted investors’ confidence in the space. Notably, Eli Lilly missed our earnings estimates while Merck lagged on the revenue front. Johnson and Johnson Earnings in Focus The world’s biggest maker of healthcare products continued its long streak of earnings beat and beat our estimate on the top line buoyed by strong prescription drug revenues and a weakening dollar. Earnings per share came in at $1.68, four cents ahead of the Zacks Consensus Estimate and 7.7% higher than the year-ago earnings. Revenues inched up 0.6% year over year to $17.5 billion and edged past the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $17.42 billion (read: Healthcare ETFs to Buy on Blockbuster J&J Q1 Results ). Johnson & Johnson raised its guidance for fiscal 2016. The company now expects revenues in the range of $71.2-$71.9 billion compared with the previous forecast of $70.8-$71.5 billion. Additionally, the earnings per share guidance has been raised from $6.43-$6.58 to $6.53-$6.68. The Zacks Consensus Estimate at the time of the earnings release was pegged at $71.5 billion for revenues and $6.52 for earnings per share. These were higher than the mid-point of the company’s projection. JNJ has gained 0.2% to date since its earnings announcement. Pfizer Earnings in Focus The U.S. drug giant also topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate for both the top and the bottom lines, and raised the guidance for fiscal 2016. Earnings per share of 67 cents and revenues of $13.0 billion were ahead of our estimates by 12 cents and $1.0 billion, respectively. Notably, earnings per share grew 32% while revenues jumped 20% year over year. For fiscal 2016, Pfizer upped its revenue guidance to $51-53 billion from $49-$51 billion and earnings per share guidance to $2.38-$2.48 from $2.20-$2.30. The mid-points were much higher than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $51.3 billion for revenues and $2.29 for earnings per share at the time of the earnings release. Shares of PFE are down 0.4% since the earnings announcement. Merck Earnings in Focus Earnings per share came in at 89 cents, four cents ahead of the Zacks Consensus Estimate and 4.7% higher than the year-ago earnings. Revenues slipped 1.2% year over year to $9.3 billion, and were slightly below the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $9.5 billion. Merck now expects earnings per share in the range of $3.65-$3.77 and revenues in the band of $39.0-$40.2 billion for 2016. This is in contrast with the previous guidance of $3.60-$3.75 and $38.7-$40.2 billion, respectively. The Zacks Consensus Estimate at the time of the release was pegged at $3.71 for earnings per share and $40.1 billion for revenues. The stock has lost about 1.3% following its earnings announcement. Bristol-Myers Earnings in Focus Bristol-Myers reported earnings per share of 74 cents, outpacing our estimate by 8 cents and increasing 4% from the year-ago quarter. Also, revenues rose 9% to $4.39 billion and edged past the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $4.24 billion. Like the other drug makers, the company also revised its earnings per share outlook upward to $2.50-$2.60 from $2.30-$2.40 for fiscal 2016. The low end was much higher than our estimate of $2.42 at the time of the earnings announcement. Revenues are expected to grow in the low double-digit range. Shares of BMY are down 1.5% to date since the earnings announcement. Eli Lilly Earnings in Focus Earnings of 83 cents at Eli Lilly missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by a couple of cents and came in 5% lower than the year-ago earnings. Revenues grew 5% to $4.86 billion but fell short of our estimate of $4.87 billion. However, Eli Lilly raised its 2016 earnings per share guidance to $3.50-$3.60 from $3.45-$3.55 and revenue guidance to $20.6-$21.1 billion from $20.2-$20.7 billion. The Zacks Consensus Estimate at the time of the earnings release was pegged at $3.55 for earnings and $20.7 billion for revenues. Shares of LLY have tumbled 3.41% since the earnings release. ETF Angle The string of earnings beat and upbeat outlook failed to boost pharma stocks and ETFs as the industry is grappling with drug pricing issues. Below, we have highlighted the ETFs in detail: PowerShares Dynamic Pharmaceuticals Portfolio ETF (NYSEARCA: PJP ) This is by far the most popular choice in the pharma space that follows the Dynamic Pharmaceuticals Intellidex Index. The product has AUM of about $1.1 billion and sees good volume of around 192,000 shares a day. The fund charges 56 bps in fees and expenses from investors. Holding 23 stocks, the fund invests over 5% share each in the in-focus five firms. The ETF shed about 7.4% over the past 10 days and has a Zacks ETF Rank of 3 or ‘Hold’ rating with a High risk outlook. iShares U.S. Pharmaceuticals ETF (NYSEARCA: IHE ) This ETF provides exposure to 42 pharma stocks by tracking the Dow Jones U.S. Select Pharmaceuticals Index. The in-focus firms occupy the top five holdings in the basket accounting for combined 40.6% of total assets, suggesting heavy concentration. The product has $607.8 million in AUM and charges 45 bps in fees and expense. Volume is moderate as it exchanges about 52,000 shares a day. The fund has lost 7.9% over the past 10 days and has a Zacks ETF Rank of 3 with a Medium risk outlook. SPDR S&P Pharmaceuticals ETF (NYSEARCA: XPH ) This fund provides exposure to the pharma companies by tracking the S&P Pharmaceuticals Select Industry Index. With AUM of over $465.9 million, it trades in moderate volume of around 190,000 shares a day and charges 35 bps in fees a year. In total, the product holds 40 securities with the in-focus five firms taking nearly 5% share each. The product was down 9.73% in the same period and has a Zacks ETF Rank of 3 with a Medium risk outlook. Market Vectors Pharmaceutical ETF (NYSEARCA: PPH ) This ETF follows the MVIS US Listed Pharmaceutical 25 Index and holds 26 stocks in its basket. Pfizer, Bristol-Myers, Johnson & Johnson and Merck make up for over 5% share each while Eli Lilly accounts for 4.7% of assets. The product has amassed $261.3 million in its asset base and trades in a moderate volume of about 105,000 shares a day. Expense ratio came in at 0.36%. The fund has lost 5.3% over the past 10 days. It has a Zacks ETF Rank of 2 or ‘Buy’ rating with a Medium risk outlook. Link to the original post on Zacks.com