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

CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, August 7th, Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Thursday, August 15th will be paid a dividend of 0.20 per share by the utilities provider on Thursday, September 12th. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.12%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, August 15th.

CenterPoint Energy has increased its dividend payment by an average of 1.3% annually over the last three years. CenterPoint Energy has a 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 Stock Down 0.5 %

Shares of CenterPoint Energy stock traded down $0.14 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $25.63. 11,008,646 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 5,029,964. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.79, a current ratio of 1.20 and a quick ratio of 1.06. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $29.75 and its 200 day moving average price is $28.84. The stock has a market cap of $16.45 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.48 and a beta of 0.92. CenterPoint Energy has a 12-month low of $25.42 and a 12-month high of $31.57.

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

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CNP has been the subject of a number of research reports. Scotiabank reduced their price target on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $31.00 to $29.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, April 22nd. StockNews.com raised CenterPoint Energy from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 31st. BMO Capital Markets downgraded CenterPoint Energy from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and dropped their price target for the stock from $31.00 to $28.00 in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $32.00 to $29.00 in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley lowered shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and lowered their target price for the stock from $30.00 to $29.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 17th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have given a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $29.90.

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.