Brokerages Set The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) Price Target at $22.13

The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) has been given a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by the seven analysts that are covering the stock, Marketbeat reports. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating on the company. The average 12 month price objective among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $22.13.

A number of equities analysts recently commented on the stock. UBS Group lowered their price target on shares of AES from $20.00 to $19.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, April 3rd. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $22.00 target price on shares of AES in a report on Tuesday, April 9th. Mizuho began coverage on AES in a research report on Thursday, April 18th. They set a “buy” rating and a $21.00 price target on the stock. Argus reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $25.00 price objective on shares of AES in a report on Tuesday, March 26th. Finally, Barclays reduced their target price on AES from $21.00 to $20.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, March 14th.

Institutional Trading of AES

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. SG Americas Securities LLC boosted its stake in shares of AES by 16.6% in the 3rd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 66,110 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,005,000 after purchasing an additional 9,436 shares in the last quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC grew its stake in shares of AES by 17.5% during the third quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC now owns 58,439 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $888,000 after buying an additional 8,697 shares during the last quarter. Xponance Inc. increased its holdings in shares of AES by 131.0% during the third quarter. Xponance Inc. now owns 301,086 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $4,577,000 after buying an additional 170,752 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates lifted its stake in shares of AES by 17.9% in the 3rd quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 3,000,303 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $45,605,000 after acquiring an additional 456,526 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Concourse Financial Group Securities Inc. grew its position in AES by 42.3% during the 3rd quarter. Concourse Financial Group Securities Inc. now owns 6,202 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $94,000 after acquiring an additional 1,844 shares during the last quarter. 93.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

AES Trading Down 1.4 %

Shares of AES stock opened at $18.67 on Thursday. AES has a 12-month low of $11.43 and a 12-month high of $23.07. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $16.73 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $17.00. The company has a quick ratio of 0.61, a current ratio of 0.68 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.42. The company has a market capitalization of $13.27 billion, a PE ratio of 25.93 and a beta of 1.08.

AES (NYSE:AES) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 27th. The utilities provider reported $0.73 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.67 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $2.97 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.36 billion. AES had a return on equity of 39.82% and a net margin of 4.40%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 3.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.49 EPS. As a group, analysts predict that AES will post 1.91 earnings per share for the current year.

AES Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, May 1st will be paid a $0.1725 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, April 30th. This represents a $0.69 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.70%. AES’s payout ratio is 95.83%.

AES Company Profile

The AES Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a diversified power generation and utility company in the United States and internationally. The company owns and/or operates power plants to generate and sell power to customers, such as utilities, industrial users, and other intermediaries; owns and/or operates utilities to generate or purchase, distribute, transmit, and sell electricity to end-user customers in the residential, commercial, industrial, and governmental sectors; and generates and sells electricity on the wholesale market.