Kentucky Retirement Systems Reduces Position in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

Kentucky Retirement Systems reduced its stake in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 5.1% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 50,854 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 2,723 shares during the quarter. Kentucky Retirement Systems’ holdings in AES were worth $912,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. BOKF NA grew its stake in shares of AES by 15.0% during the 1st quarter. BOKF NA now owns 65,526 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,184,000 after acquiring an additional 8,562 shares during the period. Lazard Asset Management LLC raised its position in shares of AES by 178.5% during the 1st quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 689,879 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $12,369,000 after purchasing an additional 442,184 shares during the period. Quadrature Capital Ltd boosted its holdings in AES by 146.6% in the 1st quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd now owns 237,460 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $4,255,000 after buying an additional 141,180 shares during the period. Cloverfields Capital Group LP raised its holdings in AES by 62.0% during the first quarter. Cloverfields Capital Group LP now owns 30,939 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $555,000 after acquiring an additional 11,842 shares during the period. Finally, Gamco Investors INC. ET AL boosted its stake in shares of AES by 1.3% in the first quarter. Gamco Investors INC. ET AL now owns 563,700 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $10,107,000 after acquiring an additional 7,000 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 93.13% of the company’s stock.

AES Trading Up 0.2 %

AES stock traded up $0.03 during mid-day trading on Monday, hitting $17.55. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 1,935,478 shares, compared to its average volume of 8,076,674. The stock has a market cap of $12.47 billion, a PE ratio of 24.33 and a beta of 1.09. The AES Co. has a one year low of $11.43 and a one year high of $22.21. The company has a 50 day moving average of $19.04 and a 200-day moving average of $17.81. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.04, a quick ratio of 0.71 and a current ratio of 0.78.

AES (NYSE:AES) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, May 3rd. The utilities provider reported $0.50 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.34 by $0.16. AES had a return on equity of 36.23% and a net margin of 4.40%. The firm had revenue of $3.09 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.20 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.22 earnings per share. AES’s quarterly revenue was down 4.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts anticipate that The AES Co. will post 1.91 EPS for the current year.

AES Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, August 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, August 1st will be issued a $0.1725 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, August 1st. This represents a $0.69 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.93%. AES’s dividend payout ratio is presently 95.83%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

AES has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. UBS Group lowered their price target on AES from $20.00 to $19.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, April 3rd. 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. Seaport Res Ptn downgraded AES from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 21st. Mizuho boosted their price target on shares of AES from $21.00 to $24.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, May 17th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $22.00 price objective on shares of AES in a research note on Tuesday, April 9th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, AES presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $22.75.

About AES

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.