Kentucky Retirement Systems Insurance Trust Fund Sells 1,338 Shares of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

Kentucky Retirement Systems Insurance Trust Fund lowered its stake in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) by 6.5% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 19,296 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 1,338 shares during the period. Kentucky Retirement Systems Insurance Trust Fund’s holdings in CenterPoint Energy were worth $568,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in CNP. Capital International Investors raised its holdings in CenterPoint Energy by 1.0% during the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 83,754,579 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $2,386,168,000 after buying an additional 865,120 shares during the last quarter. Boston Partners increased its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 3.3% in the first quarter. Boston Partners now owns 17,545,528 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $499,962,000 after acquiring an additional 556,802 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised 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 acquiring an additional 2,961,464 shares during the last quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC boosted its holdings in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 46.6% during 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 period. Finally, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans increased its holdings in CenterPoint Energy by 1.3% during the 2nd quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 4,043,757 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $125,275,000 after purchasing an additional 53,655 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.77% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CNP has been the subject of several research analyst reports. KeyCorp cut CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Friday, August 2nd. BMO Capital Markets reiterated a “market perform” rating and issued a $28.00 price target on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a report on Monday, August 26th. Scotiabank upped their price objective on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $28.00 to $30.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their target price for the company from $32.00 to $29.00 in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased their price target on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $30.00 to $32.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 25th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $30.09.

CenterPoint Energy Price Performance

Shares of NYSE CNP opened at $31.15 on Tuesday. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $29.40 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $29.10. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $25.41 and a fifty-two week high of $31.57. The company has a market capitalization of $20.30 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.63, a P/E/G ratio of 2.68 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.87, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a current ratio of 1.11.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The utilities provider reported $0.31 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.31. CenterPoint Energy had a return on equity of 9.73% and a net margin of 11.25%. The company had revenue of $1.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.88 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.40 EPS. Analysts expect that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.62 EPS for the current fiscal year.

CenterPoint Energy Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 12th. Investors of record on Thursday, November 21st will be paid 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 yield of 2.70%. CenterPoint Energy’s payout ratio is presently 55.63%.

CenterPoint Energy 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.