Entergy Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the production and retail distribution of electricity in the United States. The company operates in two segments, Utility and Entergy Wholesale Commodities. The Utility segment generates, transmits, distributes, and sells electric power in portions of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, including the City of New Orleans; and distributes natural gas. The Entergy Wholesale Commodities segment engages in the ownership, operation, and decommissioning of nuclear power plants; and ownership of interests in non-nuclear power plants that sell electric power to wholesale customers, as well as provides services to other nuclear power plant owners. It generates electricity through gas, nuclear, coal, hydro, and solar power sources. The company sells energy to retail power providers, utilities, electric power co-operatives, power trading organizations, and other power generation companies. The company's power plants have approximately 26,000 megawatts (MW) of electric generating capacity, which include 6,000 MW of nuclear power. It delivers electricity to 3 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. The company was founded in 1913 and is headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth
A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on ETR shares. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on shares of Entergy from $124.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research report on Thursday, August 4th. Credit Suisse Group reduced their target price on shares of Entergy from $136.00 to $114.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, June 21st. Warburg Research set a $177.00 target price on shares of Entergy in a research report on Monday, May 16th. Sanford C. Bernstein set a $100.00 target price on shares of Entergy and gave the company a "market perform" rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 17th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on shares of Entergy from $125.00 to $138.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Thursday, August 4th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Entergy currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $124.79.
Entergy Price Performance
Entergy stock opened at $121.81 on Tuesday. Entergy has a 12-month low of $98.50 and a 12-month high of $126.82. The stock has a market cap of $24.78 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.13, a PEG ratio of 2.83 and a beta of 0.58. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $112.28 and a 200 day moving average price of $113.91. The company has a current ratio of 0.87, a quick ratio of 0.64 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.10.
Entergy (NYSE:ETR - Get Rating) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 3rd. The utilities provider reported $1.78 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $1.36 by $0.42. Entergy had a net margin of 9.92% and a return on equity of 11.07%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.34 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Entergy will post 6.36 earnings per share for the current year.
Entergy Announces Dividend
The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 1st. Shareholders of record on Thursday, August 11th will be given a dividend of $1.01 per share. This represents a $4.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.32%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, August 10th. Entergy's dividend payout ratio is presently 66.78%.
Insider Buying and Selling at Entergy
In other Entergy news, COO Paul D. Hinnenkamp sold 6,500 shares of Entergy stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $120.94, for a total transaction of $786,110.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 26,102 shares in the company, valued at $3,156,775.88. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Company insiders own 0.37% of the company's stock.