Idacorp stock still a buy as analyst lifts price target to $161

Siebert Williams Shank analyst Christopher Ellinghaus raised his price target for Idacorp (IDA) to $161 from $158, maintaining a buy rating on the Idaho-based utility.

"Still one of the highest-growth companies in the sector," Jay Rhame, chief executive officer of Reaves Asset Management, which manages the Virtus Reaves Utilities ETF, said. Idacorp is a top-10 holding in that fund as of May 29.

The new price target values the company at about 25 times estimated 2026 earnings and implies stock gains of about 15% from recent levels near $140. Idacorp grew earnings per share by 7% in 2025 and is projected to grow earnings close to 15% in 2026, fueled by industry-leading customer and load growth. The stock has risen 21% since Barron's picked it in May 2025, outperforming the Vanguard Utilities ETF by 11 percentage points.

"The company has a slew of electricity resource and transmission investments in the hopper with upside opportunities certain to be announced," Ellinghaus said, adding that Idacorp has some of the fastest customer, load, rate base and earnings growth in the industry. The utility serves about 650,000 retail customers in southern Idaho and eastern Oregon and benefits from population inflow and power demand from artificial-intelligence data centers. Meta Platforms Inc.'s data center in Kuna, Idaho, about 20 miles outside Boise, is nearing completion.

The reaffirmation signals that Idacorp's growth story remains intact as AI-driven electricity demand accelerates. Investors collect $3.52 per share in annual dividends, a 2.5% yield, while the utility executes on its transmission and resource investment pipeline.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.