SG Americas Securities LLC Takes $645,000 Position in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

SG Americas Securities LLC bought a new stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP - Free Report) in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund bought 17,795 shares of the utilities provider's stock, valued at approximately $645,000.

Several other large investors have also modified their holdings of the business. Curat Global LLC purchased a new stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy in the first quarter valued at approximately $25,000. J.Safra Asset Management Corp purchased a new stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Assetmark Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 657.1% in the fourth quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 901 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 782 shares during the period. VSM Wealth Advisory LLC purchased a new stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Finally, Harbor Investment Advisory LLC boosted its holdings in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 201.5% in the first quarter. Harbor Investment Advisory LLC now owns 1,034 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $37,000 after purchasing an additional 691 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.77% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CNP has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Barclays upgraded CenterPoint Energy from an "underweight" rating to an "equal weight" rating and upped their target price for the stock from $30.00 to $37.00 in a report on Tuesday, April 22nd. BMO Capital Markets upped their price target on CenterPoint Energy from $35.00 to $36.00 and gave the stock a "market perform" rating in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Evercore ISI upped their price target on CenterPoint Energy from $37.00 to $41.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research report on Monday, April 28th. Scotiabank reaffirmed an "outperform" rating and set a $40.00 price target (up from $35.00) on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a research report on Friday, April 25th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group began coverage on CenterPoint Energy in a research report on Wednesday, April 2nd. They set a "buy" rating and a $42.00 price target on the stock. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, CenterPoint Energy has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $36.04.

CenterPoint Energy Price Performance

CenterPoint Energy stock traded up $0.17 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $35.73. The company had a trading volume of 6,127,653 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,634,665. The company has a market capitalization of $23.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.98, a P/E/G ratio of 2.63 and a beta of 0.59. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a 12-month low of $25.41 and a 12-month high of $39.31. The firm's fifty day simple moving average is $37.23 and its 200-day simple moving average is $34.79. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.86, a current ratio of 0.93 and a quick ratio of 0.79.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The utilities provider reported $0.53 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of $0.55 by ($0.02). CenterPoint Energy had a net margin of 10.80% and a return on equity of 9.74%. The company had revenue of $2.92 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $2.73 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.55 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.75 EPS for the current year.

CenterPoint Energy Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 12th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 15th were given a dividend of $0.22 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, May 15th. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.46%. CenterPoint Energy's payout ratio is 59.06%.

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.