Mount Yale Investment Advisors LLC Increases Stock Holdings in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

Mount Yale Investment Advisors LLC boosted its stake in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) by 33.1% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 20,358 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 5,068 shares during the quarter. Mount Yale Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in CenterPoint Energy were worth $599,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Crewe Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of CenterPoint Energy in the first quarter valued at $25,000. Rothschild Investment LLC acquired a new position in CenterPoint Energy in the 2nd quarter worth $33,000. Olistico Wealth LLC purchased a new position in CenterPoint Energy in the 2nd quarter valued at about $33,000. Strategic Investment Solutions Inc. IL acquired a new stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy during the second quarter valued at about $36,000. Finally, FinTrust Capital Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 60.3% during the first quarter. FinTrust Capital Advisors LLC now owns 1,201 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $34,000 after acquiring an additional 452 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.77% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently commented on CNP. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on CenterPoint Energy from $28.00 to $32.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 16th. KeyCorp cut CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. StockNews.com lowered shares of CenterPoint Energy from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $32.00 to $29.00 in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. Finally, Bank of America started coverage on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $29.00 target price for the company. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, CenterPoint Energy currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $29.91.

CenterPoint Energy Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:CNP opened at $29.31 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $18.82 billion, a PE ratio of 18.20, a P/E/G ratio of 2.58 and a beta of 0.92. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $25.41 and a fifty-two week high of $31.57. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $28.51 and a 200 day simple moving average of $28.94. The company has a quick ratio of 0.99, a current ratio of 1.20 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.79.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, July 30th. The utilities provider reported $0.36 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.32 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $1.91 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates 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 company earned $0.28 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.62 EPS for the current year.

CenterPoint Energy Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 12th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 21st will be paid a $0.21 dividend. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.87%. This is a boost from CenterPoint Energy’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 21st. CenterPoint Energy’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 49.69%.

About CenterPoint Energy

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.