Analysts Set The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) PT at $22.57

The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) has received a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the nine research firms that are covering the firm, Marketbeat reports. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating on the company. The average 1-year price objective among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $22.57.

Several research firms recently issued reports on AES. Evercore ISI upgraded AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. Jefferies Financial Group started coverage on shares of AES in a report on Wednesday, September 11th. They set a “buy” rating and a $20.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Barclays boosted their target price on shares of AES from $22.00 to $23.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, October 21st.

AES Stock Performance

AES opened at $16.43 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $11.68 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.82 and a beta of 1.07. AES has a 1-year low of $14.67 and a 1-year high of $22.21. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $17.96 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $18.31. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.63, a current ratio of 0.97 and a quick ratio of 0.91.

AES (NYSE:AES) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.38 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.36 by $0.02. AES had a return on equity of 32.74% and a net margin of 6.07%. The business had revenue of $2.94 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.22 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.21 EPS. AES’s revenue for the quarter was down 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities 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 will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Friday, November 1st will be paid a dividend of $0.1725 per share. This represents a $0.69 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.20%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 1st. AES’s payout ratio is 95.83%.

Institutional Trading of AES

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in AES. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in AES by 2.2% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 89,725,232 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,608,773,000 after acquiring an additional 1,929,523 shares during the last quarter. Capital International Investors raised its holdings in AES by 11.4% during the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 77,641,395 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,392,110,000 after buying an additional 7,969,594 shares during the period. M&G Plc bought a new stake in AES in the first quarter worth $123,272,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its stake in AES by 3.1% during the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 4,769,785 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $83,805,000 after buying an additional 141,565 shares during the period. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its position in AES by 16.5% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 3,132,744 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $55,084,000 after acquiring an additional 444,252 shares during the last quarter. 93.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.