Asset Management One Co. Ltd. Grows Stock Holdings in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. $CNP

Asset Management One Co. Ltd. lifted its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) by 2.4% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 267,671 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after buying an additional 6,386 shares during the quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd.’s holdings in CenterPoint Energy were worth $9,834,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. N.E.W. Advisory Services LLC purchased a new position in shares of CenterPoint Energy during the 1st quarter valued at $25,000. ST Germain D J Co. Inc. purchased a new position in shares of CenterPoint Energy during the 2nd quarter valued at $26,000. Smallwood Wealth Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of CenterPoint Energy during the 1st quarter valued at $27,000. Chung Wu Investment Group LLC purchased a new stake in CenterPoint Energy in the 2nd quarter worth $29,000. Finally, Ameritas Advisory Services LLC purchased a new stake in CenterPoint Energy in the 2nd quarter worth $33,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.77% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have commented on CNP. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Mizuho set a $42.00 price target on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a research note on Tuesday, October 21st. Scotiabank boosted their price target on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $42.00 to $45.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Friday. Finally, UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $44.00 to $46.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, October 10th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eight have issued a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $41.50.

CenterPoint Energy Stock Performance

CenterPoint Energy stock opened at $39.70 on Tuesday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $38.58 and its 200-day moving average price is $37.71. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a twelve month low of $28.57 and a twelve month high of $40.50. The company has a quick ratio of 0.38, a current ratio of 0.51 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.76. The company has a market cap of $25.92 billion, a PE ratio of 25.13, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.83 and a beta of 0.57.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, October 23rd. The utilities provider reported $0.50 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.46 by $0.04. CenterPoint Energy had a net margin of 11.37% and a return on equity of 10.25%. The firm had revenue of $1.99 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.04 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.31 EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.75 EPS for the current fiscal year.

CenterPoint Energy Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 11th. Investors of record on Thursday, November 20th will be issued a dividend of $0.22 per share. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.2%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 20th. CenterPoint Energy’s dividend payout ratio is presently 55.70%.

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.