CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) Stock Position Lifted by IFM Investors Pty Ltd

IFM Investors Pty Ltd lifted its holdings in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) by 1.9% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 226,389 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 4,139 shares during the quarter. IFM Investors Pty Ltd’s holdings in CenterPoint Energy were worth $6,660,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the business. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. grew its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 2.1% in the first quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 18,981 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $541,000 after purchasing an additional 388 shares in the last quarter. Pitcairn Co. boosted its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 2.3% during the first quarter. Pitcairn Co. now owns 19,544 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $557,000 after buying an additional 434 shares in the last quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. boosted its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 3.5% during the first quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. now owns 13,224 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $377,000 after buying an additional 447 shares in the last quarter. FinTrust Capital Advisors LLC boosted its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 60.3% during the first quarter. FinTrust Capital Advisors LLC now owns 1,201 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $34,000 after buying an additional 452 shares in the last quarter. Finally, V Square Quantitative Management LLC boosted its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 2.4% during the second quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC now owns 19,650 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $609,000 after buying an additional 462 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 91.77% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CNP has been the subject of several research reports. BMO Capital Markets reaffirmed a “market perform” rating and set a $28.00 target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a research note on Monday, August 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their target price for the company from $32.00 to $29.00 in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. KeyCorp cut CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on CenterPoint Energy from $30.00 to $32.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 25th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on CenterPoint Energy from $28.00 to $32.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 16th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, CenterPoint Energy presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $29.91.

CenterPoint Energy Stock Down 0.6 %

Shares of CenterPoint Energy stock opened at $29.31 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $28.51 and a 200 day moving average price of $28.94. The company has a market cap of $18.82 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.20, a P/E/G ratio of 2.58 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a current ratio of 1.20, a quick ratio of 0.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.79. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a 1 year low of $25.41 and a 1 year high of $31.57.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 30th. The utilities provider reported $0.36 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.32 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $1.91 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.88 billion. CenterPoint Energy had a return on equity of 10.81% and a net margin of 12.28%. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.28 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.62 EPS for the current fiscal year.

CenterPoint Energy Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 12th. Investors of record on Thursday, November 21st will be paid a $0.21 dividend. This is an increase from CenterPoint Energy’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.87%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 21st. CenterPoint Energy’s dividend payout ratio is currently 49.69%.

CenterPoint Energy Company Profile

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.