Barclays PLC Trims Holdings in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

Barclays PLC reduced its holdings in shares of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP – Get Rating) by 15.0% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 543,044 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 95,787 shares during the quarter. Barclays PLC’s holdings in CenterPoint Energy were worth $15,304,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in CNP. Deutsche Bank AG boosted its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 32.9% during the 2nd quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 19,775,849 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $584,971,000 after buying an additional 4,899,990 shares during the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. boosted its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 68.2% during the 1st quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 7,638,179 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $234,036,000 after buying an additional 3,096,455 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 10.0% during the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 33,279,592 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,019,687,000 after buying an additional 3,035,409 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 2.1% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 73,506,201 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $2,252,230,000 after acquiring an additional 1,502,900 shares in the last quarter. Finally, GQG Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $43,123,000. 90.28% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on the company. Guggenheim lowered CenterPoint Energy from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and upped their price target for the company from $31.00 to $32.00 in a research report on Monday. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on CenterPoint Energy to $35.00 in a research report on Wednesday, December 14th. StockNews.com lowered CenterPoint Energy from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 18th. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on CenterPoint Energy from $29.00 to $31.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 15th. Finally, KeyCorp dropped their price target on CenterPoint Energy from $34.00 to $31.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 20th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $32.20.

CenterPoint Energy Price Performance

Shares of NYSE CNP opened at $30.19 on Wednesday. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a 1-year low of $25.03 and a 1-year high of $33.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.46, a current ratio of 0.89 and a quick ratio of 0.69. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $30.43 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $30.21. The firm has a market capitalization of $19.01 billion, a PE ratio of 12.53, a P/E/G ratio of 5.73 and a beta of 0.86.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP – Get Rating) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, November 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.32 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.31 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $1.90 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.74 billion. CenterPoint Energy had a return on equity of 10.77% and a net margin of 17.67%. On average, research analysts expect that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.39 EPS for the current year.

CenterPoint Energy Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 9th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 16th will be issued a dividend of $0.19 per share. This represents a $0.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.52%. This is a positive change from CenterPoint Energy’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.18. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, February 15th. CenterPoint Energy’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 29.88%.

Insider Activity

In other CenterPoint Energy news, Director Barry T. Smitherman purchased 8,005 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 7th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $28.38 per share, with a total value of $227,181.90. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now owns 20,534 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $582,754.92. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Corporate insiders own 0.09% of the company’s stock.

CenterPoint Energy Company Profile

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CenterPoint Energy, Inc operates as a public utility holding company in the United States. The company operates through Electric and Natural Gas segments. The Electric segment includes electric transmission and distribution services to electric customers and electric generation assets, as well as assets in the wholesale power market.