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

CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) announced a quarterly dividend on Monday, August 5th, Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders 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 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.12%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, August 15th.

CenterPoint Energy has raised its dividend payment by an average of 1.3% annually over the last three years. CenterPoint Energy has a dividend payout ratio of 46.0% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. 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

CNP stock traded down $0.14 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $25.63. The stock had a trading volume of 10,955,749 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,030,282. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $29.75 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $28.84. CenterPoint Energy has a twelve month low of $25.42 and a twelve month high of $31.57. The stock has a market capitalization of $16.45 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.15, a PEG ratio of 2.48 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.79, a current ratio of 1.20 and a quick ratio of 1.06.

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages recently issued reports on CNP. Scotiabank dropped their price objective on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $31.00 to $29.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, April 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their price target for the company from $32.00 to $29.00 in a report on Friday, August 2nd. KeyCorp lowered CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. StockNews.com upgraded CenterPoint Energy from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 31st. Finally, Morgan Stanley lowered CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and reduced their price target for the stock from $30.00 to $29.00 in a report on Wednesday, July 17th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently 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.