Ausbil Investment Management Ltd Sells 127,317 Shares of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

Ausbil Investment Management Ltd lowered its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) by 86.8% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 19,357 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 127,317 shares during the quarter. Ausbil Investment Management Ltd’s holdings in CenterPoint Energy were worth $569,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of CNP. Quadrature Capital Ltd purchased a new position in shares of CenterPoint Energy during the 4th quarter valued at $230,000. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC lifted its position in CenterPoint Energy by 2.1% during the first quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC now owns 28,321 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $807,000 after purchasing an additional 574 shares during the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. raised its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 0.7% during the 1st quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. now owns 1,531,757 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $43,640,000 after buying an additional 10,190 shares in the last quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. grew its position in CenterPoint Energy by 3.5% in the first quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. now owns 13,224 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $377,000 after acquiring an additional 447 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Leeward Investments LLC MA increased its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 4.0% in the first quarter. Leeward Investments LLC MA now owns 569,745 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $16,232,000 after acquiring an additional 21,907 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 91.77% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have recently commented on CNP. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective 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 decreased their price target on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $29.00 to $28.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, August 20th. BMO Capital Markets reaffirmed a “market perform” rating and issued a $28.00 price objective on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a research note on Monday, August 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $32.00 to $29.00 in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of CenterPoint Energy from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $29.91.

CenterPoint Energy Trading Down 0.8 %

CenterPoint Energy stock traded down $0.24 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $29.51. The stock had a trading volume of 697,571 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,373,159. The company has a quick ratio of 0.99, a current ratio of 1.20 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.79. The firm has a market cap of $18.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.94, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.56 and a beta of 0.92. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a 52-week low of $25.41 and a 52-week high of $31.57. The company has a fifty day moving average of $28.37 and a 200 day moving average of $28.93.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 30th. The utilities provider reported $0.36 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.32 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $1.91 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.88 billion. CenterPoint Energy had a net margin of 12.28% and a return on equity of 10.81%. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.28 earnings per share. On average, analysts anticipate that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.62 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

CenterPoint Energy Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 12th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 21st will be given a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 21st. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.85%. This is an increase from CenterPoint Energy’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. CenterPoint Energy’s payout ratio is presently 59.15%.

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.