Morgan Stanley Raises CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) Price Target to $32.00

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) had its target price boosted by analysts at Morgan Stanley from $30.00 to $32.00 in a research report issued to clients and investors on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an “equal weight” rating on the utilities provider’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s target price points to a potential upside of 11.81% from the company’s current price.

A number of other equities research analysts also recently issued reports on the stock. StockNews.com raised shares of CenterPoint Energy from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. KeyCorp downgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. Scotiabank cut their price objective on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $29.00 to $28.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, August 20th. Wells Fargo & Company downgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and cut their price objective for the company from $32.00 to $28.00 in a research report on Tuesday, August 13th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their price objective for the company from $32.00 to $29.00 in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, CenterPoint Energy has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $29.55.

CenterPoint Energy Stock Performance

CNP traded down $0.06 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $28.62. 1,272,501 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 5,304,955. The stock has a market capitalization of $18.37 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.17, a P/E/G ratio of 2.51 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a quick ratio of 0.99, a current ratio of 1.20 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.79. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $27.48 and its 200-day moving average price is $28.69. CenterPoint Energy has a 52-week low of $25.41 and a 52-week high of $31.57.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, July 30th. The utilities provider reported $0.36 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.32 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $1.91 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.88 billion. CenterPoint Energy had a net margin of 12.28% and a return on equity of 10.81%. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.28 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts expect that CenterPoint Energy will post 1.62 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of CenterPoint Energy

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of CNP. Aveo Capital Partners LLC lifted its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 4.7% in the 4th quarter. Aveo Capital Partners LLC now owns 13,280 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $379,000 after purchasing an additional 600 shares in the last quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN lifted its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 36.2% in the 4th quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 433,039 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $12,372,000 after purchasing an additional 115,029 shares in the last quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC raised its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 12.9% during the 4th quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 106,602 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $3,046,000 after buying an additional 12,178 shares in the last quarter. US Bancorp DE raised its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 1.2% during the 4th quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 68,639 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,961,000 after buying an additional 820 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. raised its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 4.6% during the 4th quarter. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 170,553 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $4,873,000 after buying an additional 7,498 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other 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.