Kentucky Retirement Systems Insurance Trust Fund Sells 4,117 Shares of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

Kentucky Retirement Systems Insurance Trust Fund cut its holdings in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) by 21.3% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 15,179 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 4,117 shares during the period. Kentucky Retirement Systems Insurance Trust Fund’s holdings in CenterPoint Energy were worth $482,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of CNP. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. boosted its holdings in CenterPoint Energy by 566.5% in the third quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. now owns 1,744,742 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $51,330,000 after purchasing an additional 1,482,966 shares in the last quarter. Zimmer Partners LP boosted its holdings in CenterPoint Energy by 98.1% in the third quarter. Zimmer Partners LP now owns 1,536,640 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $45,208,000 after purchasing an additional 760,956 shares in the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in CenterPoint Energy by 1,391.8% in the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 536,379 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $157,800,000 after purchasing an additional 500,425 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in CenterPoint Energy by 2.5% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 15,083,896 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $442,231,000 after purchasing an additional 370,790 shares in the last quarter. Finally, National Bank of Canada FI boosted its holdings in CenterPoint Energy by 135.0% in the third quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 586,529 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $17,255,000 after purchasing an additional 336,984 shares in the last quarter. 91.77% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

CNP has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. UBS Group upgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $31.00 to $37.00 in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Guggenheim cut shares of CenterPoint Energy from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, January 23rd. Barclays upped their price target on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $29.00 to $30.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a report on Monday, January 27th. Scotiabank upgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating and upped their price target for the company from $30.00 to $35.00 in a report on Thursday, December 12th. Finally, LADENBURG THALM/SH SH initiated coverage on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a report on Thursday, December 12th. They set a “buy” rating and a $34.50 price target for the company. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $31.46.

CenterPoint Energy Stock Up 0.7 %

NYSE CNP opened at $34.04 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.87, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a current ratio of 1.11. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $32.25 and a 200 day simple moving average of $30.20. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a twelve month low of $25.41 and a twelve month high of $34.17. The stock has a market cap of $22.18 billion, a PE ratio of 22.54, a PEG ratio of 2.69 and a beta of 0.95.

CenterPoint Energy Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 13th. Investors of record on Thursday, February 20th will be paid a $0.22 dividend. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.59%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 20th. This is a boost from CenterPoint Energy’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.21. CenterPoint Energy’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 55.63%.

CenterPoint Energy 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.