BofA raises Alliant Energy stock price target on updated estimates By Investing.com

BofA Securities raised Alliant Energy’s price target to $77 from $73 and kept a Buy rating, while trimming FY2026/FY2027/FY2028 EPS estimates to $3.45/$3.66/$4.00 after updating for 2025 actuals. The firm still expects Q1 2026 ongoing EPS of $0.79, slightly below consensus of $0.80 and prior-year $0.83, reflecting offsetting rate and renewable-investment benefits versus weather and expense headwinds. Separately, the company announced a $0.535 quarterly dividend payable May 15, 2026 and a $1 billion common stock distribution agreement.

Analysis

The important signal here is not the modest target-price lift; it is that the utility’s earnings path is being nudged by competing forces that make the next 6-12 months more fragile than the headline “Buy” consensus implies. Rate base growth and renewable AFUDC are supporting the story, but the offsetting rise in depreciation, financing costs, and O&M suggests the equity is increasingly a duration trade on falling rates rather than a clean self-help compounder. If utility bond proxies stay under pressure, multiple expansion is likely capped even with steady execution.

The capital markets angle matters more than the earnings beat/miss setup. A $1B equity distribution program gives management a lever to fund growth without blowing up the balance sheet, but it also creates an overhang: any meaningful use of the shelf into strength could suppress the stock by 3%-5% in the near term, especially if investors start treating issuance as a recurring funding source for renewables and grid capex. In other words, the market may be underestimating how much of the future growth is already pre-financed, which reduces incremental equity scarcity value.

Second-order winners are the financing counterparties and, longer term, infrastructure and data-center-linked beneficiaries of a more constructively regulated Midwest utility environment. The contrarian read is that consensus is too focused on rate-base compounding and not enough on the margin squeeze from higher depreciation/interest expense, which tends to show up slowly but persistently over several quarters. That makes the current setup better for tactical trading than for initiating an aggressive long at the top of the recent analyst-target range.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Fade strength in LNT over the next 1-3 months via a small short against a basket of lower-duration regulated utilities; target 3%-6% downside if equity issuance concerns re-rate the stock.
• For income accounts, stay long LNT but sell covered calls 1-2 months out around the next analyst-target cluster to monetize upside capped by issuance risk and valuation compression.
• Pair trade: long high-growth utility names with clearer data-center optionality vs. short LNT for the next 2 quarters; the relative trade should work if the market rewards growth visibility over incremental rate-base stories.
• Avoid chasing the stock above the revised target in the near term; re-enter only on a pullback or after management clarifies timing/size of equity issuance and 2026 funding needs.