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

CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) saw unusually large options trading activity on Tuesday. Stock investors acquired 3,664 call options on the company. This is an increase of 837% compared to the average daily volume of 391 call options.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

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

Analyst Ratings Changes

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

CenterPoint Energy Stock Performance

CenterPoint Energy stock traded down $0.41 during midday trading on Tuesday, reaching $26.99. 1,417,300 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 4,171,305. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.82, a quick ratio of 0.58 and a current ratio of 0.78. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $27.89 and its 200 day simple moving average is $27.91. The firm has a market cap of $17.09 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.15, a P/E/G ratio of 2.42 and a beta of 0.92. CenterPoint Energy has a 52 week low of $25.42 and a 52 week high of $31.43.

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

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.