Martin J. Lyons
Analyst · Carl Seligson of Utility Financial
Carl, this is Marty. Thanks for the question. When you look at those various drivers for the quarter, they were positive versus the prior year. Many of those though were right in line with our expectations, when we put out the guidance. So the first one, the temperatures was really the one that was unexpected and drove electric margins about $0.05 higher and gas margins about $0.02 higher. So the weather clearly had a benefit. When we think about the guidance for the year, which we started at $0.20, and we're still at $0.20. It's important, obviously to remember that the bulk of our earnings come in the third quarter of the year. So we've got a long way to go here for the remainder of the year, both in terms of calendar months, but also in terms of where the bulk of our earnings really come from. So in thinking about it, while weather benefited us $0.07, and we are raising our guidance about $0.05. There are obviously in a forecast, there are always things if you move through time, that would change either plus or minus in terms of a little bit of a negative, certainly talked about 30-year treasuries earlier on the call, which, if our updated treasury forecast holds, probably, cost us may be $0.015 or so versus our initial expectations. Then again, we're doing well in terms of reducing the parent and other costs, expected do well in terms of refinancing of that parent company debt, we probably picked up about $0.015 there that much -- so it's interesting about interest rates, it kind of cut both ways for us in terms of savings on the refinancings. It's a benefit. We -- when we mentioned sales, when we did look at our Q1 sales frankly absent weather normalization. There were actually a little better than expected. So taking credit for that, but not really changing the balance of the year expectations. It probably picked up about a $0.01 there, and then we lost a little bit and the expectation of a higher effective tax rate. So those things we didn't all call out, there are a bunch of pluses and minuses that are a $0.01 here or a $0.01 there. Again, weather was a big benefit, it upped our guidance and the guidance range simply reflects we got a long way to go this year.