CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) Price Target Cut to $30.00 by Analysts at Morgan Stanley

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) had its price target decreased by Morgan Stanley from $31.00 to $30.00 in a research report report published on Monday, Benzinga reports. Morgan Stanley currently has an overweight rating on the utilities provider’s stock.

CNP has been the topic of several other research reports. Scotiabank reduced their price objective on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $31.00 to $29.00 and set a sector perform rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, April 22nd. StockNews.com cut shares of CenterPoint Energy from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report on Friday, June 7th. Barclays raised their target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $28.00 to $29.00 and gave the company an underweight rating in a report on Thursday, March 14th. Finally, KeyCorp raised their target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $31.00 to $33.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Monday, May 20th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $30.70.

CenterPoint Energy Price Performance

NYSE CNP opened at $31.31 on Monday. CenterPoint Energy has a 12 month low of $25.42 and a 12 month high of $31.57. The stock has a market cap of $20.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.05, a PEG ratio of 2.75 and a beta of 0.91. The company’s 50 day moving average is $29.81 and its two-hundred day moving average is $28.74. The company has a current ratio of 1.25, a quick ratio of 1.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.81.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, April 30th. The utilities provider reported $0.55 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.53 by $0.02. CenterPoint Energy had a net margin of 11.03% and a return on equity of 10.57%. The company had revenue of $2.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.82 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.50 EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that CenterPoint Energy will post 1.62 earnings per share for the current year.

CenterPoint Energy Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 13th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, May 16th were paid a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.56%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, May 15th. CenterPoint Energy’s dividend payout ratio is currently 56.34%.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Barry T. Smitherman sold 5,670 shares of CenterPoint Energy stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $29.42, for a total value of $166,811.40. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 21,203 shares in the company, valued at $623,792.26. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of CenterPoint Energy

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC raised its holdings in CenterPoint Energy by 174.9% in the first quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 6,535 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $190,000 after purchasing an additional 4,158 shares in the last quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale raised its holdings in CenterPoint Energy by 2.1% in the first quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale now owns 104,896 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $2,923,000 after purchasing an additional 2,196 shares in the last quarter. Boston Partners raised its holdings in CenterPoint Energy by 3.3% in the first quarter. Boston Partners now owns 17,545,528 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $499,962,000 after purchasing an additional 556,802 shares in the last quarter. Cetera Advisors LLC raised its holdings in CenterPoint Energy by 40.7% in the first quarter. Cetera Advisors LLC now owns 20,359 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $580,000 after purchasing an additional 5,891 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cetera Investment Advisers raised its holdings in CenterPoint Energy by 86.2% in the first quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 88,326 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $2,516,000 after purchasing an additional 40,878 shares in the last quarter. 91.77% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About CenterPoint Energy

CenterPoint Energy, Inc operates as a public utility holding company in the United States. The company operates through two segments, Electric and Natural Gas. The Electric segment includes electric transmission and distribution services to electric customers and electric generation assets, as well as optimizes assets in the wholesale power market.