American Electric Power (AEP)
Forward P/E is 19.18x against a peer median of 18.39x, a ratio of 1.04x — inside the 0.90–1.15 fairly priced band — with trailing P/E 22.52x and PEG 2.27. Latest-quarter revenue grew 5.1% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR), positive but below the group pace, and the PEG is too high for an undervalued call at this ratio. Delivered demand check: the Electric utilities & independent power group's median growth was 8.0% — demand rising, and this company grew more slowly than that pace.
What would change this label: Move to UNDERVALUED if the forward P/E compresses to about 16.6x or below (0.90x the peer median) at unchanged estimates with revenue growth staying above +5% year over year. Move to OVERVALUED if the forward P/E rises above about 21.1x (1.15x the peer median) without a matching rise in growth, or if revenue growth falls to 0% or below while the multiple stays above 19x.
American Electric Power delivers electricity to millions of customers. Its shares cost a touch more than similar power companies, and its sales grew at a decent but slower pace than the group. The price looks fair — neither a clear bargain nor clearly too dear.
Both lines start at 100 on 2020-09-01. Over the full window American Electric Power returned +67.44% and the S&P 500 +118.28% (price returns; dividends not reinvested). Worst peak-to-trough fall for American Electric Power: -32.2% (2022-09-12 to 2023-10-05). Source: Nasdaq official daily history.
What the label rests on
Forward P/E is 19.18x against a peer median of 18.39x, a ratio of 1.04x — inside the 0.90–1.15 fairly priced band — with trailing P/E 22.52x and PEG 2.27. Latest-quarter revenue grew 5.1% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR), positive but below the group pace, and the PEG is too high for an undervalued call at this ratio. Delivered demand check: the Electric utilities & independent power group's median growth was 8.0% — demand rising, and this company grew more slowly than that pace. The company’s forward P/E is 19.2× against a peer median of 18.4×. Its own history: UNVERIFIED — no sourced range available. Sector demand read: Delivered demand check: the Electric utilities & independent power group's median latest-quarter revenue growth was 8.0% year over year (SEC filings) — demand rising. This company grew 5.1%, below the group median. Latest-quarter sales growth was +5.1% versus a year earlier (SEC filings).
| Company | Price (Oct 28, 2026) | Forward P/E | Trailing P/E |
|---|---|---|---|
| American Electric Power (AEP) | $130.03 | 19.2× | 22.5× |
| CEG | $257.92 | 20.9× | 25.0× |
| ETR | $108.45 | 22.9× | 27.8× |
| VST | $143.40 | 14.2× | 24.4× |
| EXC | $44.93 | 15.2× | 16.5× |
| DUK | $124.81 | 18.4× | 18.7× |
| Peer median | 18.4× |
Multiples: stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026. Peer set chosen by sector; the median is the middle value of the set. The label and its numbers were recorded in the programme’s label registry on Oct 28, 2026 and will be scored at 6 and 12 months.
Sales, profit and cash
This company does not report a gross-profit line in its SEC facts (normal for banks, payment networks and some health insurers), so profit is shown as net income instead — gross margin is marked UNVERIFIED-absent rather than estimated.
Free cash flow = cash from operations minus spending on plant and equipment, both from the company’s SEC cash-flow statement. Gaps are quarters where that spending line is not separately tagged in the filings — shown as gaps, never estimated.
| Quarter | Sales | Gross margin | Net income | EPS (GAAP, diluted) | Free cash flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q/E Mar 2026 2026-03-31 | $5.9B | — | $874M | 1.60 | $554M |
| Q/E Dec 2025 2025-12-31 | $5.3B | — | $582M | — | $18M |
| Q/E Sep 2025 2025-09-30 | $6.0B | — | $972M | 1.81 | $2.2B |
| Q/E Jun 2025 2025-06-30 | $5.1B | — | $1.2B | 2.29 | $-138M |
| Q/E Mar 2025 2025-03-31 | $5.6B | — | $800M | 1.50 | $1.4B |
| Q/E Dec 2024 2024-12-31 | $4.8B | — | $664M | — | $1.3B |
| Q/E Sep 2024 2024-09-30 | $5.5B | — | $962M | 1.80 | $2.2B |
| Q/E Jun 2024 2024-06-30 | $4.7B | — | $340M | 0.64 | — |
| Q/E Mar 2024 2024-03-31 | $5.1B | — | $1.0B | 1.90 | — |
| Q/E Dec 2023 2023-12-31 | $4.6B | — | $336M | — | — |
| Q/E Sep 2023 2023-09-30 | $5.3B | — | $516M | 1.83 | — |
| Q/E Jun 2023 2023-06-30 | $4.4B | — | $516M | 1.01 | — |
The last twelve reported quarters. Full 23-quarter history sits in the data pack behind this page. A dash means the figure is not tagged as a standalone quarter in the company’s SEC facts (the usual case is the fourth quarter, which many companies only report inside the full-year filing) — it is missing, not zero.
Earnings: getting better or worse?
Each box is one quarter’s earnings per share (EPS). Green means EPS was higher than the same quarter a year earlier; red means lower; a dash means the figure is not tagged in the filings.
Basis: GAAP diluted EPS from SEC company facts, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
Key facts
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Company (legal name in filings) | AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER CO INC |
| Chief executive | Bill Fehrman (source: https://www.marketbeat.com/earnings/reports/2026-7-30-american-electric-power-company-inc-stock/) |
| Sector | Utilities — Electric Utilities — generates and delivers electricity to homes and businesses across a large service area |
| Share price (Oct 28, 2026) | $130.03 |
| Market value (market cap) | $70.9B — share price times shares outstanding of 544,104,955 (SEC filings; SEC EDGAR dei EntityCommonStockSharesOutstanding (latest)) |
| Sales, last twelve months | $22.2B |
| Net income, last twelve months | $3.7B |
| Free cash flow, last twelve months | $2.6B |
| Latest reported quarter | Q/E Mar 2026 (of 23 quarters in the data pack) |
| Six-year price return vs S&P 500 | +67.44% vs +118.28% |
| Worst peak-to-trough fall | -32.2% (2022-09-12 to 2023-10-05) |
What we could not verify
- Gross profit / gross margin: not tagged as a standalone line in this company's EDGAR company facts (common for banks, payment networks and some healthcare payers) — shown as UNVERIFIED-absent; the page charts revenue and net income instead.
- TTM GAAP diluted EPS could not be summed from company facts because at least one of the last four quarters (typically Q4) has no standalone tagged EPS; trailing P/E is therefore taken from the labelled secondary source in valuation_label.md.
- Free cash flow is absent for one or more quarters: either the filer does not separately tag PP&E purchases in its EDGAR cash-flow facts (common for banks), or — for a successor registrant's newest quarter — the cash-flow lines are year-to-date without the prior-quarter rung needed to difference them. Affected quarters are null in the data, never estimated.
- Own-history P/E range not yet compiled for this company in the Phase 1 batch run; the label rests on peer-median, growth and PEG evidence.
- Guidance record (each quarter scored against the guidance the company gave the quarter before) is not yet compiled for this company — it is a Phase 2 layer. The earnings strip below therefore uses reported EPS versus a year earlier, which is fully sourced from filings.
The IT factor — the most exciting thing the market is overlooking — is not assessed on an X-Ray page. It belongs to the Deep Dive (Phase 2), where it gets the evidence standard it needs. Leadership-era scoring (the six years split by chief executive) is likewise a Phase 2 layer; this page names the current chief executive only, from a sourced profile.
Sources
- SEC EDGAR submissions — Filing index; company legal name.
https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0000004904.json - SEC EDGAR company facts — Quarterly financial spine: revenue, gross profit, net income, GAAP diluted EPS, operating cash flow, PP&E capex, buybacks, dividends, diluted shares.
https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK0000004904.json - Nasdaq official daily history — Daily closes for the company; SPY (assetclass=etf) saved as raw/nasdaq_spy_raw.json over identical dates.
https://api.nasdaq.com/api/quote/AEP/historical?assetclass=stocks - Valuation multiples and peer figures — stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026; see valuation_label.md in the data pack.
Conventions: earliest-filed value per period, as first reported; cash-flow years-to-date differenced quarter by quarter; EPS never differenced; free cash flow = operating cash flow minus plant-and-equipment spending. This page is a dated snapshot — updates are new versions, never silent edits.