Stock Traders Buy Large Volume of CenterPoint Energy Call Options (NYSE:CNP)

CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) was the recipient of some unusual options trading activity on Tuesday. Stock investors purchased 3,664 call options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 837% compared to the average daily volume of 391 call options.

Institutional Trading of CenterPoint Energy

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Covestor Ltd raised its position in CenterPoint Energy by 176.7% during the 1st quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 891 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 569 shares in the last quarter. Global Retirement Partners LLC grew its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 163.7% during the 4th quarter. Global Retirement Partners LLC now owns 894 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $26,000 after buying an additional 555 shares in the last quarter. CENTRAL TRUST Co increased its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 137.5% during the third quarter. CENTRAL TRUST Co now owns 950 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after buying an additional 550 shares during the period. Resurgent Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in CenterPoint Energy in the fourth quarter worth about $32,000. Finally, KB Financial Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy in the 1st quarter valued at about $34,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.77% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on CNP. Mizuho reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $29.00 price objective (down from $30.00) on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a research report on Wednesday, February 21st. Barclays increased their price target on CenterPoint Energy from $28.00 to $29.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 14th. Evercore ISI downgraded CenterPoint Energy from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $29.00 to $30.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 23rd. KeyCorp upped their price objective on CenterPoint Energy from $29.00 to $31.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 4th. Finally, Guggenheim decreased their target price on CenterPoint Energy from $33.00 to $32.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, February 21st. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $30.30.

CenterPoint Energy Price Performance

NYSE:CNP opened at $27.70 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of $17.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.36, a PEG ratio of 2.40 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.82, a current ratio of 0.78 and a quick ratio of 0.58. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $27.88 and a 200-day simple moving average of $27.92. CenterPoint Energy has a 1 year low of $25.42 and a 1 year high of $31.43.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported $0.32 EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.32. The company had revenue of $2.18 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.83 billion. CenterPoint Energy had a net margin of 10.55% and a return on equity of 10.44%. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.28 earnings per share. Equities analysts forecast that CenterPoint Energy will post 1.62 EPS for the current year.

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.