Ceredex Value Advisors LLC Trims Stake in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

Ceredex Value Advisors LLC lessened its stake in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP - Free Report) by 22.7% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,468,500 shares of the utilities provider's stock after selling 432,000 shares during the quarter. Ceredex Value Advisors LLC owned approximately 0.23% of CenterPoint Energy worth $41,955,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Advisor Partners II LLC lifted its holdings in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 1.2% in the first quarter. Advisor Partners II LLC now owns 29,370 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $865,000 after purchasing an additional 357 shares in the last quarter. Moors & Cabot Inc. increased its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 0.7% during the third quarter. Moors & Cabot Inc. now owns 52,633 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $1,413,000 after acquiring an additional 368 shares during the last quarter. Wetherby Asset Management Inc. increased its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 3.9% during the first quarter. Wetherby Asset Management Inc. now owns 11,100 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $327,000 after acquiring an additional 412 shares during the last quarter. First Republic Investment Management Inc. increased its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 2.2% during the first quarter. First Republic Investment Management Inc. now owns 19,444 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $596,000 after acquiring an additional 427 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Checchi Capital Advisers LLC increased its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 4.2% during the third quarter. Checchi Capital Advisers LLC now owns 10,505 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $282,000 after acquiring an additional 428 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 91.77% of the company's stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently commented on CNP. Barclays increased their price target on CenterPoint Energy from $28.00 to $29.00 and gave the company an "underweight" rating in a research report on Thursday, March 14th. KeyCorp increased their price target on CenterPoint Energy from $29.00 to $31.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Thursday, January 4th. Evercore ISI downgraded CenterPoint Energy from an "outperform" rating to an "in-line" rating and increased their price target for the company from $29.00 to $30.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 23rd. Guggenheim decreased their target price on CenterPoint Energy from $33.00 to $32.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 21st. Finally, Mizuho reissued a "neutral" rating and issued a $29.00 target price (down from $30.00) on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a research report on Wednesday, February 21st. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $30.73.

CenterPoint Energy Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE CNP traded down $0.05 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $28.05. The company had a trading volume of 5,375,568 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,431,182. The company has a market capitalization of $17.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.63, a P/E/G ratio of 2.47 and a beta of 0.92. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a 1 year low of $25.42 and a 1 year 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 stock's 50-day moving average price is $27.91 and its 200-day moving average price is $27.91.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported $0.32 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.32. The company had revenue of $2.18 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $2.83 billion. CenterPoint Energy had a return on equity of 10.44% and a net margin of 10.55%. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.28 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.62 earnings per share 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.