CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.20

CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) declared a quarterly dividend on Monday, August 5th, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, August 15th will be given a dividend of 0.20 per share by the utilities provider on Thursday, September 12th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.10%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, August 15th.

CenterPoint Energy has increased its dividend payment by an average of 1.3% per year over the last three years. CenterPoint Energy has a dividend payout ratio of 46.0% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect CenterPoint Energy to earn $1.74 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 46.0%.

CenterPoint Energy Price Performance

NYSE CNP traded down $0.07 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $25.81. The stock had a trading volume of 2,223,705 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,134,076. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $29.33 and a 200 day simple moving average of $28.79. The company has a quick ratio of 1.06, a current ratio of 1.20 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.79. The company has a market cap of $16.51 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.23, a P/E/G ratio of 2.48 and a beta of 0.92. CenterPoint Energy has a 52-week low of $25.42 and a 52-week high of $31.57.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 30th. The utilities provider reported $0.36 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.32 by $0.04. CenterPoint Energy had a net margin of 12.28% and a return on equity of 10.81%. The company had revenue of $1.91 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.88 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.28 earnings per share. Equities analysts forecast that CenterPoint Energy will post 1.62 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on the company. Scotiabank dropped their price target on CenterPoint Energy from $31.00 to $29.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, April 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $32.00 to $29.00 in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company downgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and reduced their price target for the company from $32.00 to $28.00 in a research report on Tuesday. BMO Capital Markets cut shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and lowered their price objective for the stock from $31.00 to $28.00 in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley lowered CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and reduced their target price for the company from $30.00 to $29.00 in a report on Wednesday, July 17th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $29.73.

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.