Cypress Capital Group Buys Shares of 6,554 CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

Cypress Capital Group purchased a new position in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) in the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 6,554 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $203,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Signaturefd LLC boosted its stake in 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 buying an additional 2,197 shares during the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC purchased a new stake in CenterPoint Energy in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $187,000. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. raised its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 5.5% during the fourth quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 18,593 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $531,000 after purchasing an additional 963 shares during the period. Truist Financial Corp boosted its holdings in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 19.4% in the 4th quarter. Truist Financial Corp now owns 57,995 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,657,000 after purchasing an additional 9,422 shares during the last quarter. Finally, PGGM Investments raised its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 13.7% in the 4th quarter. PGGM Investments now owns 32,035 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $915,000 after buying an additional 3,850 shares during the period. 91.77% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

CenterPoint Energy Stock Performance

Shares of CNP traded down $0.17 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $26.77. The stock had a trading volume of 5,106,257 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,224,420. The company has a quick ratio of 1.06, a current ratio of 1.20 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.79. The company has a market cap of $17.13 billion, a PE ratio of 18.85, a PEG ratio of 2.48 and a beta of 0.92. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $25.41 and a fifty-two week high of $31.57. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $28.62 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $28.68.

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

CenterPoint Energy Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 12th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 15th will be given a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, August 15th. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.99%. CenterPoint Energy’s dividend payout ratio is presently 56.34%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CNP has been the topic of several research reports. BMO Capital Markets lowered shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and cut their price target for the company from $31.00 to $28.00 in a report on Friday, August 2nd. KeyCorp downgraded CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company downgraded CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and dropped their target price for the company from $32.00 to $28.00 in a report on Tuesday, August 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and lowered their price objective for the company from $32.00 to $29.00 in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. Finally, Scotiabank decreased their target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $29.00 to $28.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, August 20th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $29.73.

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.