Evergy's Earnings Miss Amid Weather Woes and Rising Costs but Outperforming Strategy Shows Top 500 High-Volume Stocks Deliver 137.53% Alpha Over 3 Years

On August 7, 2025, Evergy (EVRG) reported a 0.52% decline in its stock price, trading at $73.54 in pre-market hours. The utility company’s second-quarter adjusted earnings per share (EPS) fell to $0.82, below the $0.88 forecast, driven by a 26% drop in cooling degree days due to milder weather, higher operational and maintenance expenses, and rising interest and depreciation costs. Despite these challenges, Evergy reaffirmed its 2025 adjusted EPS guidance of $3.92 to $4.12 and announced a quarterly dividend of $0.6675 per share, payable on September 19.

The earnings report highlighted mixed performance. While weather-normalized electricity demand grew by 1.4%, revenue totaled $1.43 billion, slightly below the $1.44 billion forecast. Management emphasized progress on regulatory and infrastructure initiatives, including a unanimous settlement in Kansas Central’s rate case and approvals for new natural gas and solar projects in Kansas and Missouri. These developments are expected to support long-term affordability and reliability goals, aligning with the company’s focus on expanding its energy mix and serving growing customer demand.

Evergy’s reaffirmed 2025 guidance and long-term adjusted EPS growth target of 4–6% through 2029 reflect confidence in its strategic initiatives. CEO David Campbell noted the importance of balancing capital investments with load growth, particularly as new customers like Panasonic and Meta ramp up operations. The company also outlined plans to divest non-regulated clean energy investments, which contributed losses of $0.10 per share in Q2. With $12.4 billion in long-term debt and $27.8 million in cash as of June 30, 2025, Evergy’s financial position remains stable, though potential equity needs in 2026–2027 could impact capital structure flexibility.

The strategy of purchasing the top 500 stocks by daily trading volume and holding them for one day delivered a 166.71% return from 2022 to the present, outperforming the benchmark return of 29.18% by 137.53%. This underscores the role of liquidity concentration in short-term stock performance, particularly in volatile markets.