Quest Partners LLC Purchases 34,699 Shares of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

Quest Partners LLC raised its position in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) by 3,469,900.0% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 34,700 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after buying an additional 34,699 shares during the quarter. Quest Partners LLC’s holdings in CenterPoint Energy were worth $1,021,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 185.7% in the second quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 235,223 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $7,287,000 after purchasing an additional 152,878 shares in the last quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board grew its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 86.4% in the first quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 1,413,899 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $40,282,000 after purchasing an additional 655,327 shares in the last quarter. UniSuper Management Pty Ltd grew its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 487.8% in the first quarter. UniSuper Management Pty Ltd now owns 40,024 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,140,000 after purchasing an additional 33,215 shares in the last quarter. Baillie Gifford & Co. grew its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 18.7% in the second quarter. Baillie Gifford & Co. now owns 78,838 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $2,442,000 after purchasing an additional 12,422 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of Montreal Can grew its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 13.4% in the second quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 1,052,237 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $32,630,000 after purchasing an additional 124,529 shares in the last quarter. 91.77% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts recently commented on CNP shares. Bank of America started coverage on CenterPoint Energy in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $29.00 target price for the company. BMO Capital Markets restated a “market perform” rating and set a $28.00 target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a research report on Monday, August 26th. Scotiabank boosted their target price on CenterPoint Energy from $28.00 to $30.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on CenterPoint Energy from $30.00 to $32.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 25th. Finally, StockNews.com cut CenterPoint Energy from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $30.09.

CenterPoint Energy Trading Up 0.5 %

Shares of CNP stock opened at $31.57 on Thursday. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a 12-month low of $25.41 and a 12-month high of $31.68. The company has a current ratio of 1.11, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.87. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $29.54 and its 200-day moving average price is $29.13. The stock has a market capitalization of $20.58 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.91, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.68 and a beta of 0.92.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The utilities provider reported $0.31 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.31. The company had revenue of $1.86 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.88 billion. CenterPoint Energy had a return on equity of 9.73% and a net margin of 11.25%. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.40 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.62 EPS for the current fiscal year.

CenterPoint Energy Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 12th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 21st will be paid a dividend of $0.21 per share. 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 2.66%. CenterPoint Energy’s dividend payout ratio is currently 52.98%.

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.