BID TerminalOpen complete report
Research library Industrials & Energy

Back of Napkin

DTE Energy Company DTE

Three-pass checkedFresh as companies report

The bet you're really making is that Michigan keeps letting DTE spend billions rebuilding its electric grid and earn a fixed profit on every dollar it puts in the ground. You're betting the state's regulators stay friendly, because nearly all of DTE's money comes from selling power and gas to homes and factories in one corner of Michigan, at prices the government sets. Right now it is going fine: spring-quarter profit rose 23% to $282 million, though the first half of the year still trails last year after a weak, choppy start. You pay 21 times last year's earnings, and by what you pay for the company's assets, the stock sits near its highest in the twelve years since 2014.

Key data

Price$136.08
52-week range$126.23 – $155.75
P/E, trailing / FY2028E21.4x / 15.1x
Price / book2.4x

DTE · price with moving averages

Daily · 6MWeekly · 3Y
$90$108$125$142$159 Sep '23Apr '24Nov '24Jul '25Feb '26Sep '26 BID
EMAs82140

Source: market data.

The business

DTE Energy is a holding company wrapped around two regulated monopolies. DTE Electric runs the poles, wires and power plants for about 2.3 million customers across southeast Michigan, Detroit included; DTE Gas pipes natural gas to roughly 1.3 million more. A household in Dearborn does not shop for another electric company, because there isn't one. That is the whole moat: a legal franchise to be the only wire into the house, in exchange for letting the Michigan Public Service Commission set the price and the profit.

The two utilities generate the large majority of earnings. The rest is DTE Vantage, which builds renewable natural gas and industrial energy projects, and an energy-trading desk whose paper gains and losses mostly wash out over time but make any single GAAP quarter jump around. About $16 billion of revenue a year runs through the whole thing.

Inside the complete Back of Napkin

  1. 01The business
  2. 02The numbers
  3. 03Management
  4. 04How it fails or surprises you
  5. 05Closing thoughts
  6. 06Methodology

Continue with DTE

Get the complete Back of Napkin free.

Choose this as your free complete report. No card required.

Read the complete report

More company research

View all research
Devon Energy Corporation DVNThe bet you're really making is that Devon keeps pulling oil out of West Texas cheaply enough to make money at prices well below today's. You're betting the company it bought this spring makes the average barrel cheaper, not just adds more of them. Right now it is going well: the largest sales quarter in the company's history, roughly double the one before as the merger landed, with profit swinging back hard after a weak start to the year. You pay about 11 times the past year's earnings and roughly 8 times what the combined company now earns in a year, toward the top of what the stock has fetched over the last five years. Back of Napkin SolarEdge Technologies, Inc. SEDGThe bet you're really making is that people in Europe and America keep putting solar panels on their roofs, and keep buying SolarEdge's box that turns that sunlight into power the house can use. You're betting the mountain of unsold inverters that piled up in European warehouses, the thing that nearly killed the company, is finally gone, so what SolarEdge ships now matches what people actually install. Right now it is turning: revenue grew 20% from a year ago, and for every dollar of product it keeps 28 cents after building it, up from 11 cents, though it still loses money overall. You pay about 19 times the profit analysts pencil in for 2028, two years out with no profit before then, about the middle of what the stock cost in its normal years before the pandemic. Back of Napkin Plug Power Inc. PLUGThe bet you're really making is that Plug Power can build a green-hydrogen business, fuel cells for the forklifts in giant warehouses and the hydrogen to run them, faster than it burns through its cash. You're betting it stops losing money on the things it sells before the money runs out, because for a decade it sold that gear for less than it cost to make. Right now it is finally close on that one line: last quarter it came within a whisker of breaking even on the cost of what it sold, the best in years, though it still lost $188 million overall and its cash keeps draining. You pay about 4 times yearly sales for a company that has never turned a full-year profit in its 29 years and holds only $162 million in cash against losses that size. Back of Napkin PG&E Corporation PCGThe bet you're really making is that PG&E keeps burying and rebuilding thousands of miles of power line across northern California, and that California keeps letting it charge customers enough to earn a steady profit on all that spending. You're betting it gets through the dry summers without its equipment starting another deadly fire. Right now it is going well: first-half revenue up 8%, profit per share climbing about 10% a year, and a capital program underway that management has described as targeting roughly $12 billion for 2026. You pay about 10 times last year's earnings and 1.1 times book value, half what a safer utility costs and near the low end of its own decade, because a fire it starts could still bankrupt it again. Back of Napkin