The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) Receives Consensus Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

Shares of The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) have received an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the nine brokerages that are currently covering the stock, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. The average 12 month price target among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $21.50.

A number of brokerages have recently commented on AES. Evercore ISI raised AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. Jefferies Financial Group assumed coverage on AES in a research note on Wednesday, September 11th. They set a “buy” rating and a $20.00 price objective on the stock. Finally, Barclays reduced their price objective on AES from $23.00 to $22.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, July 22nd.

Institutional Trading of AES

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. CWM LLC increased its holdings in AES by 2.4% in the second quarter. CWM LLC now owns 27,122 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $477,000 after buying an additional 628 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Trust N.A. grew its holdings in shares of AES by 1.6% during the second quarter. Raymond James Trust N.A. now owns 44,433 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $781,000 after purchasing an additional 711 shares during the last quarter. Rise Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of AES by 92.4% during the second quarter. Rise Advisors LLC now owns 1,499 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after purchasing an additional 720 shares during the last quarter. Empirical Finance LLC grew its holdings in shares of AES by 4.7% during the first quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 18,185 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $326,000 after purchasing an additional 823 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UMB Bank n.a. grew its holdings in shares of AES by 102.3% during the second quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 1,776 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 898 shares during the last quarter. 93.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

AES Stock Performance

Shares of AES stock opened at $20.07 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $17.64 and a 200 day moving average price of $18.15. The stock has a market cap of $14.26 billion, a PE ratio of 27.88 and a beta of 1.07. AES has a 1 year low of $11.43 and a 1 year high of $22.21. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.63, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a current ratio of 0.97.

AES (NYSE:AES) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.38 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.36 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $2.94 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.22 billion. AES had a return on equity of 32.74% and a net margin of 6.07%. AES’s revenue was down 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.21 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that AES will post 1.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

AES Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 1st were paid a $0.1725 dividend. This represents a $0.69 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.44%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 1st. AES’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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.