CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (CNP) To Go Ex-Dividend on November 21st

CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, September 25th,Zacks Dividends reports. Investors of record on Thursday, November 21st will be given a dividend of 0.21 per share by the utilities provider on Thursday, December 12th. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.70%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 21st. This is an increase from CenterPoint Energy’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20.

CenterPoint Energy has raised its dividend by an average of 1.3% annually over the last three years. CenterPoint Energy has a payout ratio of 48.3% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect CenterPoint Energy to earn $1.74 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.84 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 48.3%.

CenterPoint Energy Price Performance

CNP stock opened at $31.15 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $20.30 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.63, a PEG ratio of 2.68 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $29.40 and a 200-day moving average price of $29.10. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.87, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a current ratio of 1.11. 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 Monday, October 28th. The utilities provider reported $0.31 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.31. CenterPoint Energy had a return on equity of 9.73% and a net margin of 11.25%. The business had revenue of $1.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.88 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.40 EPS. As a group, equities analysts expect that CenterPoint Energy will post 1.62 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have weighed in on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their target price for the company from $32.00 to $29.00 in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $28.00 to $32.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 16th. Bank of America assumed coverage on CenterPoint Energy in a report on Thursday, September 12th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $29.00 price target for the company. StockNews.com downgraded CenterPoint Energy from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets restated a “market perform” rating and set a $28.00 target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a research report on Monday, August 26th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $30.09.

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.