GAMMA Investing LLC Buys Shares of 6,694 CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

GAMMA Investing LLC bought a new stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund bought 6,694 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $187,000.

Other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Aspire Private Capital LLC bought a new stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy in the 4th quarter worth approximately $445,000. California Public Employees Retirement System lifted its holdings in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 1.3% in the 4th quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System now owns 3,664,835 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $104,704,000 after acquiring an additional 46,149 shares during the last quarter. OLD National Bancorp IN bought a new stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy in the 4th quarter worth approximately $336,000. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd lifted its holdings in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 1.7% in the 4th quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd now owns 56,388 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,611,000 after acquiring an additional 950 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Signaturefd LLC lifted its holdings in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 43.7% in the 4th quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 7,223 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $206,000 after acquiring an additional 2,197 shares during the last quarter. 91.77% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

CenterPoint Energy Stock Down 1.6 %

Shares of CenterPoint Energy stock opened at $28.86 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.78, a quick ratio of 0.58 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.82. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $28.04 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $28.01. The company has a market cap of $18.27 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.22, a PEG ratio of 2.58 and a beta of 0.92. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a 12-month low of $25.42 and a 12-month high of $31.43.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported $0.32 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.32. The firm had revenue of $2.18 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.83 billion. CenterPoint Energy had a net margin of 10.55% and a return on equity of 10.44%. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.28 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.62 EPS for the current year.

CenterPoint Energy Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 13th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 16th will be paid a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.77%. CenterPoint Energy’s payout ratio is 58.82%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on CNP. Evercore ISI lowered shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $29.00 to $30.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 23rd. Barclays lifted their target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $28.00 to $29.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 14th. KeyCorp lifted their target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $29.00 to $31.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 4th. Scotiabank decreased their target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $31.00 to $29.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, April 22nd. Finally, Mizuho reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $29.00 target price (down from $30.00) on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a research note on Wednesday, February 21st. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $30.18.

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.