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.
Entergy Stock Down 0.7 %
Shares of ETR Stock traded down $0.79 during trading hours on Thursday, reaching $120.48. The company had a trading volume of 1,011,206 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,165,148. The stock's fifty day simple moving average is $112.37 and its 200 day simple moving average is $114.10. The company has a market capitalization of $24.51 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.87, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.85 and a beta of 0.58. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.10, a quick ratio of 0.64 and a current ratio of 0.87. Entergy has a twelve month low of $98.50 and a twelve month high of $126.82.
Entergy (NYSE:ETR - Get Rating) last issued its quarterly earnings data 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 return on equity of 11.07% and a net margin of 9.92%. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $1.34 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Entergy will post 6.37 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.
Entergy Announces Dividend
The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 1st. Investors of record on Thursday, August 11th will be issued a $1.01 dividend. This represents a $4.04 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.35%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, August 10th. Entergy's dividend payout ratio is currently 66.78%.
Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth
A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Barclays set a $42.00 price target on Entergy in a report on Monday, May 16th. Sanford C. Bernstein set a $100.00 price target on shares of Entergy and gave the stock a "market perform" rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 17th. Baader Bank set a $188.00 price objective on shares of Entergy in a research note on Wednesday, May 18th. The Goldman Sachs Group set a $224.00 target price on shares of Entergy in a research note on Monday, May 16th. Finally, Hauck Aufhäuser In... set a $28.00 price target on Entergy in a research note on Wednesday, May 18th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $124.79.
Insider Buying and Selling at Entergy
In other news, COO Paul D. Hinnenkamp sold 6,500 shares of Entergy stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $120.94, for a total value of $786,110.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 26,102 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,156,775.88. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.37% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.