CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) Shares Sold by Magellan Asset Management Ltd

Magellan Asset Management Ltd cut its holdings in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) by 16.0% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 464,177 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 88,127 shares during the quarter. Magellan Asset Management Ltd’s holdings in CenterPoint Energy were worth $14,728,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 2.7% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 15,490,728 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $490,205,000 after acquiring an additional 406,832 shares in the last quarter. Duff & Phelps Investment Management Co. increased its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 5.2% during the 3rd quarter. Duff & Phelps Investment Management Co. now owns 5,009,756 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $147,387,000 after purchasing an additional 247,944 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of CenterPoint Energy in the fourth quarter worth $158,232,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 4.0% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,116,586 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $130,619,000 after buying an additional 160,154 shares during the period. Finally, American Century Companies Inc. lifted its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 1,431.1% during the fourth quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 3,408,551 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $108,153,000 after buying an additional 3,185,932 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.77% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on CNP shares. Jefferies Financial Group started coverage on CenterPoint Energy in a research report on Wednesday. They issued a “buy” rating and a $42.00 target price on the stock. Guggenheim cut CenterPoint Energy from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 23rd. BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on CenterPoint Energy from $35.00 to $36.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Evercore ISI upgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $36.00 to $37.00 in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $32.00 to $34.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 20th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $34.46.

CenterPoint Energy Stock Performance

NYSE CNP opened at $36.96 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $24.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.25, a PEG ratio of 2.71 and a beta of 0.65. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $34.08 and a 200 day moving average of $31.92. The company has a current ratio of 1.08, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.91. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a twelve month low of $25.41 and a twelve month high of $37.28.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported $0.40 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.40. CenterPoint Energy had a return on equity of 10.02% and a net margin of 11.79%. The business had revenue of $2.26 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.46 billion. Sell-side analysts anticipate that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.75 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.