Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Purchases 500 Shares of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System raised its position in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) by 1.4% during the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 36,700 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 500 shares during the quarter. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System’s holdings in CenterPoint Energy were worth $1,080,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Capital International Investors raised its holdings in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 1.0% in the first quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 83,754,579 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $2,386,168,000 after buying an additional 865,120 shares during the period. Boston Partners lifted its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 3.3% during the first quarter. Boston Partners now owns 17,545,528 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $499,962,000 after purchasing an additional 556,802 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 38.8% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 10,602,621 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $302,070,000 after purchasing an additional 2,961,464 shares during the period. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC grew its holdings in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 46.6% in the second quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC now owns 4,666,563 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $144,570,000 after purchasing an additional 1,484,079 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans increased its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 1.3% in the 2nd quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 4,043,757 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $125,275,000 after buying an additional 53,655 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 91.77% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

CNP has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $30.00 to $32.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 25th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and lowered their price target for the company from $32.00 to $29.00 in a report on Friday, August 2nd. KeyCorp downgraded CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Friday, August 2nd. StockNews.com cut CenterPoint Energy from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Finally, Bank of America assumed coverage on CenterPoint Energy in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $29.00 price target on the stock. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, CenterPoint Energy has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $30.09.

CenterPoint Energy Price Performance

CNP opened at $28.58 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $18.63 billion, a PE ratio of 18.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.56 and a beta of 0.92. The business’s 50-day moving average is $28.81 and its two-hundred day moving average is $29.00. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a 1 year low of $25.41 and a 1 year high of $31.57. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.87, a current ratio of 1.11 and a quick ratio of 0.99.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The utilities provider reported $0.31 EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.31. The firm had revenue of $1.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.88 billion. CenterPoint Energy had a net margin of 11.25% and a return on equity of 9.73%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.40 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.62 earnings per share 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. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 21st will be given a $0.21 dividend. 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. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.94%. CenterPoint Energy’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 52.98%.

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.