QualityDipStocks / Utilities · Electric utilities
CenterPoint Energy CNP
Outside our quality screen, so we don’t track its dips. It’s 6% below its 52-week high.
Outside our quality screen. No fair value estimate for now: its free cash flow is negative.
- Fair value est.
- n/a
- Market Value
- forming
- Off 52-wk high
- −6%
- Risk vs market
- Lowbeta −0.15
3 bullish · 5 bearish See why
Key levels
Every level vs today’s $42.44
- 52-wk lowlowest close, 1 year$36.62−13.7%
- PriceFri Oct 30 close$42.44you are here
- 52-wk highhighest close, 1 year$45.04+6.1%
Fair value estimate
No estimate for CNP: negative free cash flow. We’d rather show nothing than a made-up number.
Risk vs market
How risk vs market is measured
One year of daily returns (Oct 30 to Oct 30, 252 sessions). Beta = how much CNP moved for each 1% move in the S&P 500 (SPY); 1.0 moves with the market. Volatility is the yearly standard deviation of daily returns. Past behavior, not a forecast.
Has moved mostly independently of the market, but its own price swings are 1.4× the S&P 500’s (it moves on its own news).
- Beta vs S&P 500
- -0.15
- Volatility
- 18% vs 13% SPY
- Correlation SPY
- −0.11
- Correlation QQQ
- −0.23
Bull vs bear
Rule-based from the data on this page, strongest first. Not advice.
Top bullish points 3 of 5
ProfitabilityOperating margin widened to 22.6% in FY2025 from 20.2% in FY2023 (SEC filings).
ProfitabilityGross margin of 100%, above the 56% median for the 14 Utilities companies we cover.
Cash returnsDividend yield of 2.2% ($604M paid over 12 months, 52% of earnings).
Top bearish points 5 of 5
ValuationFree cash flow is negative (−$2.7B over the last 12 months), so there’s no cash-flow value under the price.
Balance sheetNet debt of $23.1B, 83% of the market cap (Sep 30, 2026).
Balance sheetOperating income covers interest only 2.3× over the last 12 months.
ProfitabilityReturn on invested capital of 5%, below the 9.5% discount rate our DCF uses.
QualityDoesn’t pass our quality screen: ROE under 12% and ROIC under 10%; net debt 5.9× EBITDA (limit 3×).
Who’s talking about it
Notable investors, executives, analysts and public figures on CenterPoint Energy in the last 48 hours. Headlines as published, each linked. Their words, not ours.
No notable mentions in the last 48 hours. Checked Nov 1, 9:09 PM ET.
Compare with peers
Closest in size in Electric utilities
All fundamentals
P/E 24.2 · FCF yield -10.1% · ROE 10%
Valuation
- P/E
- 24.2×Utilities median 21.2×
- Price / FCF
- n/anegative free cash flow
- FCF yield
- −10.1%
- EV / EBITDA
- 12.4×
- Price / sales
- 2.85×
- Price / book
- 2.38×
- Market cap
- $28.0Blisted
- Enterprise value
- $51.1B
Growth
- Revenue, 12 months
- $9.8B
- Sales growth, 12 months
- +7.8%vs the 12 months before
- Sales growth, 3 yrs
- +0.1%/yrfrom FY2022
- Diluted EPS, 12 months
- $1.74
- EPS growth, last FY
- +1.3%
- Net income, 12 months
- $1.2B
- Net income growth
- +11%12 months vs before
Profitability
- Gross margin
- 100.0%
- Operating margin
- 24.4%
- Net margin
- 11.8%
- FCF margin
- −28.8%
- Return on equity
- 10%
- Return on invested capital
- 5%
Balance sheet
- Cash & short-term inv.
- $557M
- Total debt
- $23.7B
- Net cash
- −$23.1B
- Debt / equity
- 2.02×
- Interest coverage
- 2.3×operating income / interest
Cash flow & returns
- Free cash flow, 12 months
- −$2.8B
- FCF growth, 12 months
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
- Dividend yield
- 2.16%$604M paid
- Payout ratio
- 52%
- Buybacks, 12 months
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
- Share count, 1 year
- +1.2%diluted shares vs a year ago
- Stock-based comp
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
Trailing 12 months to Sep 30, 2026; balance sheet at Sep 30, 2026. From CenterPoint Energy’s SEC filings. Sparklines show up to six fiscal years. n/a means we don’t hold that number, with the reason. How each is computed.
Valuation details
Setup & signals
No setup armed
No setup armed, so there’s no trigger or stop to track yet. Reversal signal rules only run on companies that pass our quality screen.
Momentum & 52-week range
RSI 72 · 5 days +3.3%
The business
FCF $-2.8B · Sales +10%
- Free cash flow, 12 months−$2.8B
- Free-cash-flow yield−10.1%
- Free-cash-flow margin−29%
- Gross margin48%
- Operating margin24%
- Return on invested capital5%
- Return on equity10%
- Sales growth (latest quarter vs year-ago quarter)+10%
- Net debt / EBITDA5.9×
Information only, not investment advice. Fair value estimates and talking points are rule-based model output from public data and can be wrong; stop levels are reference points, not orders. How every number is computed.
CNP is outside our quality screen
One text when a published rule fires on one of the 333 quality companies we track: the ticker, the price, the stop and a link to the numbers. Nothing else.