DRW Securities LLC Purchases New Holdings in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

DRW Securities LLC purchased a new stake in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor purchased 30,861 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $908,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. boosted its holdings in CenterPoint Energy by 185.7% in the second quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 235,223 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $7,287,000 after purchasing an additional 152,878 shares during the last quarter. Baillie Gifford & Co. raised its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 18.7% during the second quarter. Baillie Gifford & Co. now owns 78,838 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $2,442,000 after buying an additional 12,422 shares in the last quarter. Bank of Montreal Can raised its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 13.4% during the second quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 1,052,237 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $32,630,000 after buying an additional 124,529 shares in the last quarter. Swiss National Bank raised its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 1.3% during the third quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 1,898,800 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $55,863,000 after buying an additional 24,400 shares in the last quarter. Finally, ING Groep NV acquired a new stake in CenterPoint Energy during the third quarter valued at approximately $2,564,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.77% of the company’s stock.

CenterPoint Energy Stock Performance

Shares of CNP stock opened at $32.49 on Tuesday. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a 12-month low of $25.41 and a 12-month high of $32.61. The firm has a market capitalization of $21.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.52, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.77 and a beta of 0.92. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $29.79 and a 200 day simple moving average of $29.18. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.87, a current ratio of 1.11 and a quick ratio of 0.92.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The utilities provider reported $0.31 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.31. CenterPoint Energy had a return on equity of 9.73% and a net margin of 11.25%. The business had revenue of $1.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.88 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.40 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.62 EPS for the current year.

CenterPoint Energy Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed 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 yield of 2.59%. This is a positive change from CenterPoint Energy’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 21st. CenterPoint Energy’s dividend payout ratio is 55.63%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have issued reports on CNP. KeyCorp cut CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on CenterPoint Energy from $28.00 to $32.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 16th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their price objective for the company from $32.00 to $29.00 in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. Bank of America assumed coverage on CenterPoint Energy in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $29.00 price target on the stock. Finally, BMO Capital Markets reiterated a “market perform” rating and set a $28.00 price target on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a research report on Monday, August 26th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $30.00.

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.