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

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) had its price target boosted by equities researchers at Morgan Stanley from $30.00 to $32.00 in a report released on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an “equal weight” rating on the utilities provider’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s target price indicates a potential upside of 10.57% from the stock’s current price.

Several other brokerages have also weighed in on CNP. Wells Fargo & Company lowered CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and cut their price target for the company from $32.00 to $28.00 in a research note on Tuesday, August 13th. BMO Capital Markets reaffirmed a “market perform” rating and set a $28.00 target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a research note on Monday, August 26th. Scotiabank dropped their price target on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $29.00 to $28.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, August 20th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and dropped their target price for the company from $32.00 to $29.00 in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $29.55.

CenterPoint Energy Price Performance

NYSE:CNP opened at $28.94 on Wednesday. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $27.48 and its two-hundred day moving average is $28.69. The firm has a market cap of $18.51 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.38, a PEG ratio of 2.51 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.79, a quick ratio of 0.99 and a current ratio of 1.20. CenterPoint Energy has a one year low of $25.41 and a one year high of $31.57.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 30th. The utilities provider reported $0.36 earnings per share (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 business had revenue of $1.91 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.88 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.28 EPS. Research analysts expect that CenterPoint Energy will post 1.62 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of CenterPoint Energy

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Capital International Investors increased its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 1.0% during the first quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 83,754,579 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $2,386,168,000 after acquiring an additional 865,120 shares during the last quarter. Boston Partners raised its position in CenterPoint Energy by 3.3% in the first quarter. Boston Partners now owns 17,545,528 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $499,962,000 after purchasing an additional 556,802 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 38.8% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 10,602,621 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $302,070,000 after purchasing an additional 2,961,464 shares in the last quarter. Cohen & Steers Inc. lifted its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 24.5% during the fourth quarter. Cohen & Steers Inc. now owns 8,030,646 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $229,436,000 after purchasing an additional 1,578,948 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp boosted its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 0.8% during the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 5,952,992 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $170,077,000 after buying an additional 46,232 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.77% of the company’s stock.

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.