Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio Lowers Holdings in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio decreased its holdings in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) by 8.1% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 248,257 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 21,842 shares during the period. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio’s holdings in CenterPoint Energy were worth $7,073,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. FORA Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of CenterPoint Energy during the first quarter valued at about $1,625,000. Bank of Nova Scotia raised its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 24.5% during the 4th quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia now owns 305,736 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $8,735,000 after buying an additional 60,223 shares in the last quarter. Duality Advisers LP lifted its holdings in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 837.7% in the 1st quarter. Duality Advisers LP now owns 210,064 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $5,985,000 after acquiring an additional 187,662 shares during the last quarter. Quantbot Technologies LP bought a new stake in CenterPoint Energy during the first quarter worth approximately $1,109,000. Finally, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board raised its position in CenterPoint Energy by 86.4% during the first quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 1,413,899 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $40,282,000 after purchasing an additional 655,327 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 91.77% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently weighed in on CNP. StockNews.com downgraded CenterPoint Energy from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Saturday, July 20th. BMO Capital Markets lowered their target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $33.00 to $32.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Scotiabank cut their price target on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $31.00 to $29.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, April 22nd. Morgan Stanley downgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from $30.00 to $29.00 in a research note on Wednesday, July 17th. Finally, KeyCorp dropped their target price on CenterPoint Energy from $33.00 to $31.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, July 22nd. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $30.60.

Insider Activity at CenterPoint Energy

In other CenterPoint Energy news, Director Barry T. Smitherman sold 5,670 shares of CenterPoint Energy stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $29.42, for a total transaction of $166,811.40. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 21,203 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $623,792.26. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

CenterPoint Energy Stock Down 1.3 %

NYSE CNP traded down $0.37 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $28.82. 661,186 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 4,707,842. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.81, a current ratio of 1.25 and a quick ratio of 1.06. The firm has a market cap of $18.44 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.58 and a beta of 0.92. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $30.05 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $28.88. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a 12-month low of $25.42 and a 12-month high of $31.57.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 30th. The utilities provider reported $0.55 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.53 by $0.02. CenterPoint Energy had a return on equity of 10.57% and a net margin of 11.03%. The firm had revenue of $2.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.82 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.50 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.62 EPS for the current fiscal year.

CenterPoint Energy 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.