Jim Cramer on Southern Company: “You Gotta Take Some Southern off the Table”

The Southern Company (NYSE:SO) is one of the stocks on Jim Cramer’s radar. When a caller expressed that they want to take some profit in the stock, Cramer commented:

“You gotta take some Southern off the table. Why? Because Southern’s a utility stock that has just hasn’t shot up this much since it was Commonwealth & Southern in the ‘30s. My tip of the hat, by the way, to my friend Andrew Ross Sorkin, whose book 1929’s coming out, and that’s when you would find out how big Commonwealth & Southern was at one point.”

Stock market reports printed on a sheet of paper. Photo by RDNE Stock Project on Pexels

The Southern Company (NYSE:SO) produces and supplies electricity and natural gas and manages energy infrastructure. In addition, the company develops renewable projects, microgrids, and digital network solutions. While discussing his fantasy stock portfolio, Cramer mentioned the stock during the September 5 episode and said:

“Typically, I go with something healthcare here, but that group is down in the dumps right now. So instead I’ve got a kind of a new one, a growth utility, Southern Company. That’s right. Utilities are classic defensive names. Even in a softer economy, everybody has to pay their gas and electric bills. Usually, these are slow and steady stocks with generous dividends but anyone who’s been paying attention over the past couple years knows that things are changing in the sector.

With the advent of AI and the great data center buildout, we’re seeing tremendous growth in demand for electricity. So suddenly many utilities are traded like growth stocks, and that includes Southern Company with regulated electric utilities serving about 4.5 million customers in three states, regulated gas utilities serving roughly 4.4 million customers in four states. Now at the same time, this is also a competitive power generation company and a leading distributed energy infrastructure company…

For years, Southern Company had an overhang from a gigantic nuclear power plant construction project in Georgia… The overruns were outrageous, billions and billions dollars over budget. But that project was finally completed a year and a half ago. Ever since then, the stock’s been on fire, especially with Southern Company’s all about the Southeast where we’re seeing a lot of new manufacturing. It doesn’t hurt, it pays 3.2% yield. So what’s the NFL tight end equivalent for Southern Company? Oh, well, that is easy. It’s Las Vegas Raiders, Brock Powers.”

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.