AA Financial Advisors LLC Makes New Investment in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

AA Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 7,024 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $200,000.

Other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its position in CenterPoint Energy by 302.6% during the fourth quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 159,772 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $4,565,000 after buying an additional 120,085 shares during the period. Bank of Nova Scotia grew its position in CenterPoint Energy by 24.5% during the fourth quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia now owns 305,736 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $8,735,000 after buying an additional 60,223 shares during the period. Wells Fargo & Company MN grew its position in CenterPoint Energy by 36.2% during the fourth quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 433,039 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $12,372,000 after buying an additional 115,029 shares during the period. Raymond James & Associates grew its position in CenterPoint Energy by 27.0% during the fourth quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 1,209,630 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $34,559,000 after buying an additional 256,820 shares during the period. Finally, Stifel Financial Corp grew its position in CenterPoint Energy by 27.7% during the fourth quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 209,034 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $5,972,000 after buying an additional 45,389 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 91.77% of the company’s stock.

CenterPoint Energy Price Performance

CNP traded down $0.40 on Wednesday, reaching $29.23. The company had a trading volume of 3,535,082 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,499,153. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $30.21 and a 200 day simple moving average of $28.85. The company has a market cap of $18.70 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.87, a P/E/G ratio of 2.67 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 1.06 and a current ratio of 1.25. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a 52-week low of $25.42 and a 52-week high of $31.57.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 30th. The utilities provider reported $0.55 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.53 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $2.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.82 billion. CenterPoint Energy had a net margin of 11.03% and a return on equity of 10.57%. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.50 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.62 EPS for the current year.

CenterPoint Energy Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 13th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 16th were paid a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.74%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, May 15th. CenterPoint Energy’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 56.34%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other CenterPoint Energy news, Director Barry T. Smitherman sold 5,670 shares of CenterPoint Energy stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $29.42, for a total transaction of $166,811.40. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 21,203 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $623,792.26. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on CNP shares. Scotiabank cut their target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $31.00 to $29.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, April 22nd. Morgan Stanley cut their target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $31.00 to $30.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, June 24th. Barclays increased their target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $28.00 to $29.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 14th. KeyCorp increased their target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $31.00 to $33.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, May 20th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Friday, June 7th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $31.00.

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.