03:50 PM EDT, 05/04/2026 (MT Newswires) -- CFRA, an independent research provider, has provided MT Newswires with the following research alert. Analysts at CFRA have summarized their opinion as follows:

We lift our 12-month target by $3 to $95, reflecting a forward P/E of 22.4x our next-12-month EPS estimate ($4.25), a premium to peers and XEL's five-year historical average of 19.2x. Our 2026 EPS view is unchanged at $4.11, though we lift our 2027 EPS view by $0.03 to $4.53. We like the company's progress in large load agreements. The Google data center (Minnesota) agreement and NextEra partnership provide a replicable framework for capturing what could become $15B-$20B+ in incremental capital investment over the next decade. The Google agreement is expected to provide approximately $1.1B in benefits to customers, with Google paying all costs for its new service. The data center pipeline now includes around 2 GW contracted/under construction (including the ~1 GW Google project), with a target to contract an additional 4 GW by year-end 2027 (1 GW in 2026 and 3 GW in 2027), and over 20 GW of additional opportunities in the active pipeline. We expect EPS growth above peers at a 9.5% CAGR from 2025-2028.