American Century Companies Inc. Grows Position in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

American Century Companies Inc. boosted its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) by 1,431.1% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 3,408,551 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 3,185,932 shares during the period. American Century Companies Inc. owned approximately 0.52% of CenterPoint Energy worth $108,153,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. TD Private Client Wealth LLC raised its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 8.3% in the 4th quarter. TD Private Client Wealth LLC now owns 19,475 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $618,000 after buying an additional 1,499 shares during the period. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS increased its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 1.2% during the fourth quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS now owns 1,223,974 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $38,837,000 after acquiring an additional 15,069 shares during the last quarter. West Tower Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of CenterPoint Energy in the 4th quarter worth about $428,000. VSM Wealth Advisory LLC purchased a new position in shares of CenterPoint Energy in the 4th quarter worth about $32,000. Finally, Xponance Inc. lifted its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 3.0% in the 4th quarter. Xponance Inc. now owns 91,635 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $2,908,000 after purchasing an additional 2,672 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.77% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms recently commented on CNP. BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $35.00 to $36.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Monday, March 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $34.00 to $36.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Guggenheim cut shares of CenterPoint Energy from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 23rd. LADENBURG THALM/SH SH started coverage on CenterPoint Energy in a research report on Thursday, December 12th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $34.50 price objective on the stock. Finally, UBS Group raised CenterPoint Energy from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the stock from $31.00 to $37.00 in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $33.77.

CenterPoint Energy Price Performance

Shares of NYSE CNP opened at $35.77 on Monday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.92, a current ratio of 1.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.91. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $25.41 and a fifty-two week high of $36.19. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $33.49 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $31.48. The firm has a market cap of $23.34 billion, a PE ratio of 22.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.71 and a beta of 0.91.

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

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.