California Public Employees Retirement System Purchases 46,149 Shares of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

California Public Employees Retirement System grew its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) by 1.3% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 3,664,835 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after buying an additional 46,149 shares during the quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System owned approximately 0.58% of CenterPoint Energy worth $104,704,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of CNP. Invesco Ltd. grew its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 5.7% during the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 8,239,922 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $221,242,000 after buying an additional 442,718 shares during the last quarter. UBS Group AG grew its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 37.5% during the third quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 1,540,465 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $41,361,000 after buying an additional 420,010 shares during the last quarter. Tudor Investment Corp Et Al grew its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 213.7% during the third quarter. Tudor Investment Corp Et Al now owns 556,730 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $14,948,000 after buying an additional 379,276 shares during the last quarter. ClearBridge Investments Ltd grew its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 9.8% during the third quarter. ClearBridge Investments Ltd now owns 3,623,324 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $97,286,000 after buying an additional 324,078 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Adage Capital Partners GP L.L.C. grew its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 90.9% during the third quarter. Adage Capital Partners GP L.L.C. now owns 627,538 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $16,849,000 after buying an additional 298,800 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 91.77% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on CNP shares. Barclays lifted their price target on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $28.00 to $29.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a report on Thursday, March 14th. Evercore ISI lowered shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $29.00 to $30.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 23rd. Mizuho reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $29.00 price target (down previously from $30.00) on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a report on Wednesday, February 21st. Guggenheim cut their price target on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $33.00 to $32.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, February 21st. Finally, Scotiabank dropped their target price 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. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, CenterPoint Energy has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $30.18.

CenterPoint Energy Price Performance

Shares of NYSE CNP opened at $28.73 on Wednesday. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $27.96 and its 200-day moving average price is $27.98. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a 1-year low of $25.42 and a 1-year high of $31.43. The firm has a market capitalization of $18.19 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.13, a P/E/G ratio of 2.53 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a current ratio of 0.78, a quick ratio of 0.58 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.82.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported $0.32 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.32. CenterPoint Energy had a net margin of 10.55% and a return on equity of 10.44%. The firm had revenue of $2.18 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.83 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.28 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.62 earnings per share 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.