Americana Partners LLC Purchases 6,100 Shares of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

Americana Partners LLC grew its holdings in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) by 89.5% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 12,912 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after buying an additional 6,100 shares during the period. Americana Partners LLC’s holdings in CenterPoint Energy were worth $380,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Crewe Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in CenterPoint Energy in the 1st quarter worth about $25,000. Olistico Wealth LLC acquired a new stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy in the second quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Rothschild Investment LLC bought a new stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy in the second quarter valued at approximately $33,000. FinTrust Capital Advisors LLC grew its position in CenterPoint Energy by 60.3% during the first quarter. FinTrust Capital Advisors LLC now owns 1,201 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $34,000 after buying an additional 452 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Tobam acquired a new stake in CenterPoint Energy during the first quarter worth approximately $35,000. 91.77% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on CNP shares. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on CenterPoint Energy from $28.00 to $32.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 16th. Scotiabank boosted their price target on CenterPoint Energy from $28.00 to $30.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $32.00 to $29.00 in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. BMO Capital Markets restated a “market perform” rating and issued a $28.00 target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a research report on Monday, August 26th. Finally, KeyCorp downgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Friday, August 2nd. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $30.09.

CenterPoint Energy Price Performance

CNP stock opened at $28.58 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $18.63 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.93, a P/E/G ratio of 2.56 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.87, a current ratio of 1.11 and a quick ratio of 0.99. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $28.81 and a 200 day simple moving average of $29.00. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a 1 year low of $25.41 and a 1 year high of $31.57.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The utilities provider reported $0.31 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.31. CenterPoint Energy had a net margin of 11.25% and a return on equity of 9.73%. The company had revenue of $1.86 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.88 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.40 earnings per share. Research analysts anticipate that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.62 EPS for the current fiscal year.

CenterPoint Energy Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed 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 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.94%. CenterPoint Energy’s payout ratio is currently 52.98%.

CenterPoint Energy Company 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.