Moors & Cabot Inc. Invests $207,000 in NRG Energy, Inc. $NRG

Moors & Cabot Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of NRG Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NRG) during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor acquired 1,287 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $207,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. GW&K Investment Management LLC boosted its position in shares of NRG Energy by 23.8% in the first quarter. GW&K Investment Management LLC now owns 672 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $64,000 after purchasing an additional 129 shares during the period. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of NRG Energy by 99.2% during the 1st quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 413,911 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $39,512,000 after buying an additional 206,096 shares in the last quarter. J.W. Cole Advisors Inc. boosted its holdings in NRG Energy by 32.7% in the 1st quarter. J.W. Cole Advisors Inc. now owns 10,082 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $962,000 after buying an additional 2,484 shares during the period. Amalgamated Bank increased its stake in NRG Energy by 6.8% in the 2nd quarter. Amalgamated Bank now owns 44,959 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $7,220,000 after buying an additional 2,852 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB raised its holdings in NRG Energy by 2.7% during the second quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 10,736 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,733,000 after acquiring an additional 279 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 97.72% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on NRG shares. Melius Research initiated coverage on NRG Energy in a research note on Wednesday, August 20th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $308.00 price objective for the company. Morgan Stanley dropped their price target on NRG Energy from $145.00 to $144.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, October 28th. Jefferies Financial Group reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $198.00 price objective on shares of NRG Energy in a research report on Monday, October 20th. Zacks Research raised shares of NRG Energy from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 15th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c)” rating on shares of NRG Energy in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have given a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $198.31.

NRG Energy Trading Up 1.2%

NRG stock opened at $172.15 on Monday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $164.34 and a 200 day moving average price of $154.58. NRG Energy, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $79.57 and a fifty-two week high of $180.54. The firm has a market cap of $33.30 billion, a PE ratio of 77.90 and a beta of 1.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.99, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a current ratio of 0.93.

NRG Energy (NYSE:NRG) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 6th. The utilities provider reported $2.78 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.93 by $0.85. NRG Energy had a net margin of 1.78% and a return on equity of 88.22%. The company had revenue of $7.64 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $7.53 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.90 earnings per share. NRG Energy’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that NRG Energy, Inc. will post 6.36 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NRG Energy Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, November 17th. Investors of record on Monday, November 3rd will be issued a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, November 3rd. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.0%. NRG Energy’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 26.31%.

NRG Energy declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share buyback program on Thursday, November 6th that authorizes the company to repurchase $3.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the utilities provider to reacquire up to 9.2% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are generally an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other NRG Energy news, VP Dak Liyanearachchi sold 10,672 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $155.00, for a total transaction of $1,654,160.00. Following the sale, the vice president directly owned 48,571 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,528,505. The trade was a 18.01% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Corporate insiders own 0.86% of the company’s stock.

About NRG Energy

NRG Energy, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an energy and home services company in the United States and Canada. It operates through Texas; East; West/Services/Other; Vivint Smart Home; and Corporate Activities segments. The company produces and sells electricity generated using coal, oil, solar, and battery storage; natural gas; and a cloud-based home platform, including hardware, software, sales, installation, customer service, technical support, and professional monitoring solutions.