Liberty One Investment Management LLC Reduces Stock Position in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

Liberty One Investment Management LLC lessened its stake in shares of The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 6.7% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 9,545 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 689 shares during the quarter. Liberty One Investment Management LLC’s holdings in AES were worth $230,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in AES. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of AES by 1.6% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 83,790,219 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $2,155,923,000 after buying an additional 1,285,423 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in shares of AES by 0.3% in the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 33,324,327 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $857,435,000 after buying an additional 102,389 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of AES by 2.4% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 13,470,163 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $386,686,000 after buying an additional 314,301 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley boosted its holdings in shares of AES by 2.3% in the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 10,461,645 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $300,877,000 after buying an additional 230,481 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp boosted its holdings in shares of AES by 5.6% in the first quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 7,126,418 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $183,363,000 after buying an additional 381,037 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 94.49% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently issued reports on AES. Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $29.00 price objective on shares of AES in a report on Friday, July 21st. Susquehanna decreased their target price on shares of AES from $33.00 to $30.00 in a research note on Thursday, August 3rd. StockNews.com upgraded shares of AES to a “sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 31st. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their target price on shares of AES from $26.00 to $23.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, September 6th. Finally, Bank of America cut shares of AES from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $24.00 to $23.00 in a research note on Thursday, June 22nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $28.08.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Alain Monie acquired 27,400 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 16th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $18.27 per share, with a total value of $500,598.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now directly owns 28,725 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $524,805.75. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In related news, Director Maura Shaughnessy bought 12,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 8th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $19.49 per share, with a total value of $243,625.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now owns 60,653 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,182,126.97. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, Director Alain Monie bought 27,400 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 16th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $18.27 per share, with a total value of $500,598.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now directly owns 28,725 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $524,805.75. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. 0.01% of the stock is owned by insiders.

AES Trading Up 1.6 %

Shares of AES opened at $17.27 on Monday. The company’s fifty day moving average is $19.84 and its 200 day moving average is $21.57. The AES Co. has a fifty-two week low of $16.89 and a fifty-two week high of $29.89. The stock has a market capitalization of $11.56 billion, a PE ratio of -28.31, a P/E/G ratio of 1.14 and a beta of 0.98. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 6.02, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.94.

AES (NYSE:AES) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, August 4th. The utilities provider reported $0.21 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.25 by ($0.04). AES had a positive return on equity of 36.65% and a negative net margin of 2.70%. The business had revenue of $3.03 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.08 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.34 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.7% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect that The AES Co. will post 1.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

AES Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, August 15th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, August 1st were paid a dividend of $0.1659 per share. This represents a $0.66 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.84%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, July 31st. AES’s payout ratio is -108.19%.

AES Company Profile

The AES Corporation operates as a diversified power generation and utility company. It owns and/or operates power plants to generate and sell power to customers, such as utilities, industrial users, and other intermediaries. The company also 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.