CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) PT Lowered to $32.00

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) had its price target lowered by BMO Capital Markets from $33.00 to $32.00 in a note issued to investors on Tuesday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an “outperform” rating on the utilities provider’s stock. BMO Capital Markets’ price objective points to a potential upside of 11.00% from the stock’s previous close.

CNP has been the topic of several other reports. Morgan Stanley lowered shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and cut their price objective for the company from $30.00 to $29.00 in a report on Wednesday, July 17th. KeyCorp cut their price objective on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $33.00 to $31.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday. Scotiabank cut 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 report on Monday, April 22nd. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of CenterPoint Energy from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Saturday. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, CenterPoint Energy currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $30.60.

CenterPoint Energy Trading Down 0.4 %

Shares of NYSE:CNP traded down $0.13 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $28.83. 141,247 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 4,705,357. The firm has a market capitalization of $18.44 billion, a PE ratio of 20.37, a P/E/G ratio of 2.55 and a beta of 0.92. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $30.14 and its 200-day simple moving average is $28.88. CenterPoint Energy has a 12-month low of $25.42 and a 12-month high of $31.57. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.81, a current ratio of 1.25 and a quick ratio of 1.06.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last issued 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. The business had revenue of $2.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.82 billion. CenterPoint Energy had a net margin of 11.03% and a return on equity of 10.57%. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.50 earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate that CenterPoint Energy will post 1.62 EPS for the current year.

Insider Transactions at CenterPoint Energy

In other news, Director Barry T. Smitherman sold 5,670 shares of CenterPoint Energy stock in a transaction on Friday, May 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $29.42, for a total transaction 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 legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in CNP. Brookstone Capital Management lifted its position in CenterPoint Energy by 43.0% during the fourth quarter. Brookstone Capital Management now owns 12,497 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $357,000 after purchasing an additional 3,759 shares during the period. Raymond James & Associates increased its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 27.0% during the fourth quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 1,209,630 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $34,559,000 after purchasing an additional 256,820 shares in the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 302.6% during the fourth quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 159,772 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $4,565,000 after purchasing an additional 120,085 shares in the last quarter. Waterway Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy during the fourth quarter worth about $363,000. Finally, Global Retirement Partners LLC increased its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 163.7% during the fourth quarter. Global Retirement Partners LLC now owns 894 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $26,000 after purchasing an additional 555 shares in the last quarter. 91.77% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.