Wetzel Investment Advisors Inc. Acquires Shares of 13,949 CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

Wetzel Investment Advisors Inc. acquired a new stake in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund acquired 13,949 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $399,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 2.1% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 73,506,201 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $2,252,230,000 after purchasing an additional 1,502,900 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 10.0% in the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 33,279,592 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,019,687,000 after purchasing an additional 3,035,409 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 1.5% in the 1st quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 12,971,112 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $381,258,000 after purchasing an additional 195,919 shares during the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. increased its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 5.7% in the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 8,239,922 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $221,242,000 after purchasing an additional 442,718 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc increased its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 0.4% in the 4th quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 7,709,912 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $231,220,000 after purchasing an additional 28,834 shares during the last quarter. 91.77% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

CNP has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Barclays lifted their price target on CenterPoint Energy from $28.00 to $29.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 14th. KeyCorp boosted their price objective on CenterPoint Energy from $29.00 to $31.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 4th. Mizuho restated a “neutral” rating and set a $29.00 price objective (down previously from $30.00) on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a research report on Wednesday, February 21st. Guggenheim reduced their price objective on CenterPoint Energy from $33.00 to $32.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 21st. Finally, Evercore ISI lowered CenterPoint Energy from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $29.00 to $30.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 23rd. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, CenterPoint Energy has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $30.30.

CenterPoint Energy Stock Up 2.1 %

CNP stock traded up $0.58 during trading on Friday, reaching $28.53. 3,337,756 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 4,265,213. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $27.91 and its 200 day moving average is $27.94. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a twelve month low of $25.42 and a twelve month high of $31.43. The company has a current ratio of 0.78, a quick ratio of 0.58 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.82. The firm has a market cap of $18.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.98, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.44 and a beta of 0.92.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported $0.32 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.32. CenterPoint Energy had a return on equity of 10.44% and a net margin of 10.55%. The business had revenue of $2.18 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.83 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.28 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.62 EPS for the current 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.