New York State Teachers Retirement System Reduces Stake in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

New York State Teachers Retirement System trimmed its holdings in shares of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP - Free Report) by 10.0% during the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 472,364 shares of the utilities provider's stock after selling 52,492 shares during the period. New York State Teachers Retirement System owned approximately 0.07% of CenterPoint Energy worth $13,897,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other large investors also recently modified their holdings of CNP. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. grew its holdings in CenterPoint Energy by 2.1% in the first quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 18,981 shares of the utilities provider's stock worth $541,000 after purchasing an additional 388 shares during the period. GHP Investment Advisors Inc. grew its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 25.7% in the 3rd quarter. GHP Investment Advisors Inc. now owns 2,047 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $60,000 after buying an additional 418 shares during the period. Pitcairn Co. increased its position in CenterPoint Energy by 2.3% in the 1st quarter. Pitcairn Co. now owns 19,544 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $557,000 after buying an additional 434 shares in the last quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. raised its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 3.5% during the 1st quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. now owns 13,224 shares of the utilities provider's stock worth $377,000 after buying an additional 447 shares during the period. Finally, FinTrust Capital Advisors LLC raised its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 60.3% during the 1st quarter. FinTrust Capital Advisors LLC now owns 1,201 shares of the utilities provider's stock worth $34,000 after buying an additional 452 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.77% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on the company. StockNews.com downgraded CenterPoint Energy from a "hold" rating to a "sell" rating in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $30.00 to $32.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 25th. KeyCorp downgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from an "overweight" rating to a "sector weight" rating in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. BMO Capital Markets reaffirmed a "market perform" rating and issued a $28.00 price target on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a research report on Monday, August 26th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered CenterPoint Energy from an "overweight" rating to a "neutral" rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from $32.00 to $29.00 in a report on Friday, August 2nd. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, CenterPoint Energy has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus price target of $30.09.

CenterPoint Energy Stock Performance

NYSE:CNP traded down $0.95 during trading on Friday, reaching $28.58. The company's stock had a trading volume of 3,986,153 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,819,977. The firm has a market cap of $18.63 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.56 and a beta of 0.92. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a 12 month low of $25.41 and a 12 month high of $31.57. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.87, a quick ratio of 0.99 and a current ratio of 1.11. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $28.81 and a 200-day moving average of $29.01.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The utilities provider reported $0.31 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.31. The company had revenue of $1.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.88 billion. CenterPoint Energy had a net margin of 11.25% and a return on equity of 9.73%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.40 earnings per share. Research analysts expect that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.62 EPS for the current fiscal year.

CenterPoint Energy Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 12th. Investors of record on Thursday, November 21st will be issued a $0.21 dividend. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.94%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 21st. This is a boost from CenterPoint Energy's previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. CenterPoint Energy's payout ratio is 52.98%.

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.