Dana Investment Advisors Inc. Cuts Position in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

Dana Investment Advisors Inc. lowered its stake in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP - Free Report) by 3.1% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 415,473 shares of the utilities provider's stock after selling 13,352 shares during the period. Dana Investment Advisors Inc. owned 0.06% of CenterPoint Energy worth $13,183,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 3.0% in the fourth quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 1,484,528 shares of the utilities provider's stock worth $47,104,000 after acquiring an additional 42,578 shares during the last quarter. DRW Securities LLC bought a new position in CenterPoint Energy in the 3rd quarter worth about $908,000. ING Groep NV purchased a new stake in CenterPoint Energy during the 3rd quarter valued at about $2,564,000. Swiss National Bank increased its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 1.3% during the 3rd quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 1,898,800 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $55,863,000 after purchasing an additional 24,400 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Custom Index Systems LLC purchased a new position in CenterPoint Energy in the fourth quarter worth about $265,000. Institutional investors own 91.77% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

CNP has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Guggenheim cut shares of CenterPoint Energy from a "buy" rating to a "neutral" rating in a report on Thursday, January 23rd. Scotiabank raised CenterPoint Energy from a "sector perform" rating to a "sector outperform" rating and upped their price target for the company from $30.00 to $35.00 in a report on Thursday, December 12th. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on CenterPoint Energy from $32.00 to $31.00 and set an "equal weight" rating for the company in a report on Friday, November 22nd. UBS Group raised shares of CenterPoint Energy from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $31.00 to $37.00 in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Finally, Barclays raised their target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $29.00 to $30.00 and gave the stock an "underweight" rating in a report on Monday, January 27th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus price target of $31.65.

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CenterPoint Energy Stock Performance

Shares of CNP stock traded up $0.86 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $34.26. 5,001,339 shares of the company's stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 4,329,117. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a 12 month low of $25.41 and a 12 month high of $34.85. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $32.72 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $30.88. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.33 billion, a PE ratio of 21.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.71 and a beta of 0.91. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.91, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a current ratio of 1.08.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported $0.40 EPS for the quarter, hitting analysts' consensus estimates 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 analysts' expectations of $2.46 billion. On average, research analysts forecast that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.75 EPS for the current year.

CenterPoint Energy Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 13th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 20th will be issued a dividend of $0.22 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 20th. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.57%. This is an increase from CenterPoint Energy's previous quarterly dividend of $0.21. CenterPoint Energy's payout ratio is currently 55.35%.

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.