Is Duke Energy Stock a Good Fit For Your Portfolio Risk

For questions about this article or underlying research, email [email protected].

You might hold Duke Energy (DUK), an electric and gas utility paying a 3.5% dividend yield, alongside funds that already follow the S&P 500. A large position in a single stock alters how an entire portfolio behaves every time the broader market rises or falls. So when the market moves, does Duke Energy add to the risk you already carry, or steady it?

Duke Energy Stock Has Moved Against The Market

During the past year of trading through October 23, 2026, Duke Energy stock generally fell when the broader market rose and climbed when the market dropped. On the S&P 500's average up day, representing a 0.638% gain, a $10,000 position in Duke lost roughly $18.70. Conversely, during the index's average down day of 0.597%, that same holding gained about $19.40.

Duke recorded a beta of -0.31 over that year. This metric tracks how far the stock moves for each 1% the index shifts, meaning Duke moved about a third as far as the market and in the opposite direction. Daily price changes also exhibited a weak inverse relationship with the index, landing at a correlation of -0.23, where -1 indicates perfectly opposite movement.

Duke experienced wider individual price swings. The stock's volatility, measuring the spread of its daily moves over a year, reached 16.6%, compared with 12.7% for the index. Even so, because the stock moved against the index, Duke steadied portfolios that already followed the market over the past year.

Has Duke Energy Stock Paid You For Its Swings?

The stock has not compensated investors as well as the market. Over the five years ended October 23, 2026, Duke delivered an annualized return of 7.9% including dividends, trailing the 12.5% gain for the S&P 500. The utility's annual volatility over those five years stood at 18.1%, slightly above the index's 17.0%.

Dividing the return by the volatility reveals how much return each unit of swing has earned. Duke scored 0.436 by this measure, falling short of the 0.735 registered by the index. Over those five years, Duke's price swings paid you less than the market's did.

Will Duke Energy Keep Moving Like This?

The pattern from the past year may not last. Over the full five years, Duke's daily moves ran slightly in tandem with the index, showing a correlation of 0.18. The company generates about 91% of its revenue from electric utilities, and management has outlined its growth plan. The Electric Utilities and Infrastructure segment accounted for $29.4 billion of the company's $32.2 billion in revenue during fiscal 2025. On the fiscal Q2 2026 call in August, management reaffirmed its target of 5% to 7% annual growth in earnings per share through 2030.

New demand is under contract. Duke has signed 7.8 gigawatts of electric service agreements with data center customers. Management said these contracts contain minimum take provisions, which serve as the basis for its revenue growth projections.

Construction costs present a risk to that steady picture. Management said Duke is deploying more than $1 billion per month on its capital plan. The company's total debt equals 94.7% of its market value, compared with 19.4% for the S&P 500. That debt is the part of the business that could make the swings bigger.

Based on the past year's pattern, Duke holds a portfolio back slightly on the market's up days and offsets part of the loss on down days. If you already own other regulated power companies building for data center demand, Duke adds more to that same bet rather than introducing a new one. The amount of data center agreements Duke has signed, in gigawatts, is the measure to watch at its next report, expected in November.

Is Too Much Of Your Wealth Riding On One Stock?

A single stock like Duke Energy can make a portfolio's good and bad days bigger. When one position grows into a large part of your wealth, a sharp fall can hurt your whole plan, and selling to spread the money out can bring a large tax bill. Our partner advisory firm offers a free strategy review of ways to protect a concentrated position and unwind it with less tax.

Request A Free Strategy Review

Spot an error or want more like this? Tell us in 10 seconds.