EXELON CORPORATION (EXC): what the price requires

The current priced-in claim for EXELON CORPORATION (EXC) is temporarily suppressed because the live engine record is unavailable. The dated report remains a snapshot, not a current market read.

Generated: 2026-07-14 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/EXC

Headline

FieldValue
TickerEXC
CompanyEXELON CORPORATION
Current price$47.16/sh
CompositionComEd 30% / PECO 19% / BGE 21% / Pepco 14% / DPL 8% / ACE 7%

What The Price Requires (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

FieldValue
Inversion basiswhole-company
Operating margin today21.3%
Multiple paid18x operating income

The price sits below what even a 5%/yr operating-profit decline would warrant; the inversion reports a bound, not a solved growth path.

Solve inputs: computed at a 5.5% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage (computed at the 5.5% minimum rate; the CAPM rate 5.4% sits below it).

Reconcile: at the x-ray's 9.3% required return this reads ~12.4%/yr; the models below use their own rates.

How unusual the bet is: within-range

ReferenceValue
vs own history-0.37σ
cohort percentile (of 70 peers)29
implied end-window share0%

Valuation X-Ray

Every valuation family lands below the price. The price therefore requires assumptions beyond what those standard frames encode.

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

FamilyMedian price/FVModelsReads
Asset1.59x5expensive
Earnings2.03x3expensive
Relative1.60x5expensive
Growth1.44x3expensive

Families that call it expensive: Asset, Earnings, Relative

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 6.7%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=16)

ModelFamilyFVPrice/FVApplicableMethodology
DCF Perpetual GrowthGrowth$184.110.26xyesReference only (OCF-based, capex excluded): OCF $6.8B
DCF Exit MultipleGrowth$0.00—noNegative/zero FCF or EBITDA — equity value floored at $0
Relative ValuationRelative$42.981.10xyesP/E 20x (static sector reference · 2026-04), scenarios: 16.7x / 20.0x / 23.3x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 13x
Simple DDMGrowth——no—
Two-Stage DDMGrowth$28.741.64xyesStage 1: 2% for 5yr, Stage 2: 3.5% perpetual
Simple Excess ReturnAsset$29.281.61xyesBV/sh $28.57, ROE (TTM) 9.5%, ke 9.3%
Two-Stage Excess ReturnAsset$29.641.59xyes5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3%
Discounted Future Market CapGrowth$32.801.44xyesRev $24.8B, growth 4% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 1.6x / 2.0x / 2.3x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x)
Peter Lynch Fair ValueRelative$25.801.83xyesEPS $2.15, growth 2% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=7.31 (Overvalued)
Margin TrajectoryGrowth——no—
Earnings Power ValueEarnings$4.0911.53xyesNormalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $4.25B × (1−18%) / WACC 6.7% → EPV (no growth)
Residual IncomeAsset$29.701.59xyesBV $28.57 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 9.5% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 6.2%/yr
Graham NumberAsset$37.181.27xyes√(22.5 × EPS $2.15 × BVPS $28.57) — Graham's conservative floor
EV/EBITDA RelativeRelative$29.561.60xyesEBITDA $6.01B × sector EV/EBITDA 13.0x
FCF YieldEarnings——no—
SBC-Adj FCF YieldEarnings——no—
Ben Graham FormulaEarnings$23.901.97xyesEPS $2.15 × (8.5 + 2×2.4%) × (4.4 / 5.3%)
ROIC-Justified P/BAsset$7.326.44xyesBV $28.57 × (ROIC 1.7% / WACC 6.7%)
P/Sales SectorRelative$60.390.78xyesRevenue $24.79B × sector P/S 2.5x
PEG Fair ValueRelative$10.754.39xyesEPS $2.15 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 2.4% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 3.6x
Earnings YieldEarnings$23.242.03xyesEPS $2.15 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%)
Funds From Operations MultipleRelative——no—
Clinical Phase NPVGrowth——no—
MertonAsset——no—
V5 Mechanical———no—

Solvency

FieldValue
Net debt$49.6b
Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax)10.86x
Net debt / operating income (pre-tax)8.92x
Share count CAGR (dilution)1.1%
Burning cashno

Interest expense is not separately reported in the latest filings, so interest coverage cannot be computed.

Bullet Takeaways

Bull Case

The bull case for Exelon is a capital-allocation story, and a clean one. A regulated utility earns its allowed return on the rate base it builds, so where it directs capital determines the quality of its growth. Exelon has tilted decisively toward transmission, raising its four-year capital plan to $41.7 billion, adding $1.5 billion to transmission while deferring $1.1 billion of distribution spending. Transmission is the highest-quality rate base a wires utility can own: it earns federally regulated returns that tend to be more stable than state-set distribution rates, and Exelon's utilities collect a "50 -basis-point incentive adder for being a member of an RTO" on top of the base return. Concentrating spending where the returns are highest and most durable is exactly the capital discipline a utility investor wants to see.

The demand behind the plan is the part that makes it grow rather than merely persist. Exelon serves dense, economically vital territories, and the capital plan is built to support load growth from large customers including data centers, underpinning roughly 7.9% annualized rate base growth. Because Exelon is a pure wires company, it captures that growth without taking generation or fuel risk: it gets paid to build and operate the grid that connects new load, whoever supplies the electrons. Revenue is further insulated by decoupling mechanisms the filing describes, where "Operating revenues are not intended to be impacted by abnormal weather", so earnings depend on the rate base, not on a hot or mild season.

The earnings cadence reflects steady execution. First-quarter 2026 adjusted operating EPS came in at $0.91, ahead of estimates, on revenue of $7.24 billion, up nearly 8% year over year, and management reaffirmed full-year operating earnings guidance of $2.81 to $2.91 with a commitment to grow near the top of its 5% to 7% range through 2029. A pure T&D utility growing earnings at the high end of mid-single digits, funded by transmission and data center load, paired with a dividend, is the kind of low-volatility total-return vehicle the bull case is built on.

Bear Case

The advantage that defines Exelon, a regulated monopoly on the wires, is also the source of its central vulnerability, and that advantage is being tested at the edges. A utility's moat is its regulatory compact, and that compact erodes when affordability becomes a political issue. Exelon itself signaled the pressure this quarter by withdrawing its filed PECO electric and gas rate cases specifically to address customer affordability. That is a telling move: a utility voluntarily pulling rate increases is a utility reading the regulatory room and deciding the timing is wrong, which directly defers the revenue that the rate base growth is supposed to produce. The same affordability dynamic can compress allowed returns or slow recovery across all six of its jurisdictions, and the bear case is that the data center load investors are excited about brings scrutiny as well as growth.

The methods, read with a utility lens, all sit below the price, which frames the risk plainly. Book value plus profitability, earnings power, and peer multiples each place fair value under today's level, anchored on a return on equity around 9.5% against a cost of equity near 9.3%. A utility earning roughly its cost of equity has little excess return to capitalize, so the premium in the price rests entirely on the rate base growing fast enough to lift future earnings. If the affordability backdrop slows that growth, the static methods are the ones that prove right.

The balance sheet is the structural constraint, as it is for every wires utility, and Exelon's is large. Net debt sits near $49.65 billion, roughly nine and a half times operating income, and the company funds its capital plan with both debt and equity, with the share count rising about 1.1% a year. That dilution is the quiet cost of growth: a holder's claim on the expanding rate base keeps getting trimmed to finance it. The filing also notes the difficulty of computing standard coverage because interest expense is not separately reported, but the leverage itself is unambiguous and heavy. The bear case is not that Exelon is fragile; regulated cash flows are dependable. It is that a heavily levered utility earning near its cost of equity, priced above what the methods support, depends on a regulatory environment that is showing affordability strain at the exact moment the company most needs to recover its rising investment.

Valuation

Begin with the standard methods, because for Exelon they line up on one side. Book value plus profitability, earnings power, and peer multiples all land below today's price, the kind of read where the value lenses see the stock as full rather than cheap. The inversion's framing is gentler, treating roughly 17 times operating income as a low multiple that sits in the lower half of the utility peer range, but the two views reconcile in the same conclusion: Exelon is not priced for a re-rating, it is priced for its rate base to grow. The whole premium rests on the $41.7 billion capital plan converting into earnings at the allowed returns the company has guided to.

The peer frame supports the moderate read. Exelon trades alongside utilities such as Public Service Enterprise Group, Southern Company, and PPL, and its multiple sits toward the lower end of that cohort, consistent with a pure wires business that carries no generation upside but also no commodity risk. The case for the price is the transmission tilt and the 7.9% rate base growth; the case against it is a return on equity near the cost of equity, which leaves thin excess return for the methods to capitalize. The valuation is best understood as paying a fair-to-full price for predictable, regulated growth, not a discount.

Solvency is read as a utility's balance sheet, and Exelon's is leveraged by design. Net debt near $49.65 billion at about nine and a half times operating income is the structure that funds the grid, and the modest annual share issuance is the other half of that funding. The company is not burning cash, and regulated revenues are dependable, so the risk is not liquidity; it is the combination of heavy leverage, a return near the cost of capital, and a price above what the static methods support. The buyer is underwriting the capital plan being recovered in full and on time, in a regulatory climate where affordability is now an active concern.

Catalysts

The first quarter of 2026 was steady, with the capital plan as the headline. Exelon reported adjusted operating EPS of $0.91, ahead of estimates, on revenue of $7.24 billion, up nearly 8% year over year, and reaffirmed full-year 2026 operating earnings guidance of $2.81 to $2.91. The strategic news was the revised four-year capital plan of $41.7 billion, which raised transmission investment by $1.5 billion, deferred $1.1 billion of distribution spending, and notably withdrew the filed PECO electric and gas rate cases to address customer affordability. The plan supports roughly 7.9% annualized rate base growth and a 5% to 7% long-term earnings growth target through 2029, anchored by load growth from large customers including data centers.

Analyst opinion is split, fitting a stock the standard methods call full. The consensus rating is Hold with an average target near $49.39, modestly above the current price, with Morgan Stanley at the high end at $54 and several firms trimming into the low-to-high $40s. The catalysts that matter from here are regulatory: outcomes in the pending rate cases across Illinois, Maryland, and the mid-Atlantic, and whether the transmission pipeline and data center interconnections convert into rate base on schedule. The affordability pressure that prompted the PECO withdrawal is the development to watch, because it sits directly on the recovery the entire valuation depends on.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

ComEd (reported)

PECO (reported)

BGE (reported)

Pepco / ACE (reported)

DPL (reported)

Methodology Note

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.

Sources

Q1 2026 results, May 2026 · analyst notes, 2026

View the full interactive EXC report on boothcheck