CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Hold” from Analysts

Shares of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) have been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the fourteen analysts that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and six have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year target price among analysts that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $38.6818.

Several research firms have recently issued reports on CNP. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $38.00 to $39.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 29th. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Friday, July 18th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $39.00 to $41.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday. Scotiabank boosted their price objective on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $40.00 to $42.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a report on Saturday, September 27th.

CenterPoint Energy Stock Performance

Shares of CNP opened at $38.82 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $25.35 billion, a PE ratio of 27.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.70 and a beta of 0.57. CenterPoint Energy has a one year low of $28.57 and a one year high of $40.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.87, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.61. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $38.22 and its 200 day moving average price is $37.29.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 24th. The utilities provider reported $0.29 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.44 by ($0.15). CenterPoint Energy had a return on equity of 9.16% and a net margin of 10.42%.The company had revenue of $1.94 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.20 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.36 EPS. CenterPoint Energy has set its FY 2025 guidance at 1.740-1.760 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that CenterPoint Energy will post 1.75 earnings per share for the current year.

CenterPoint Energy Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 11th. Investors of record on Thursday, November 20th will be paid a $0.22 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 20th. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.3%. CenterPoint Energy’s payout ratio is presently 61.54%.

Institutional Trading of CenterPoint Energy

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 20.7% in the third quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 19,882 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $771,000 after acquiring an additional 3,408 shares during the period. Corient Private Wealth LLC increased its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 2.2% in the second quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 55,996 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $2,057,000 after acquiring an additional 1,222 shares during the period. Osaic Holdings Inc. increased its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 20.3% in the second quarter. Osaic Holdings Inc. now owns 82,534 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $3,032,000 after acquiring an additional 13,908 shares during the period. Centaurus Financial Inc. bought a new stake in CenterPoint Energy in the second quarter valued at about $147,000. Finally, Orion Porfolio Solutions LLC increased its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 6.7% in the second quarter. Orion Porfolio Solutions LLC now owns 14,373 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $528,000 after acquiring an additional 897 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 91.77% of the company’s stock.

CenterPoint Energy Company Profile

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.