Barclays Raises American Electric Power (NASDAQ:AEP) Price Target to $84.00

American Electric Power (NASDAQ:AEP) had its price objective hoisted by Barclays from $83.00 to $84.00 in a report issued on Monday, Benzinga reports. Barclays currently has an equal weight rating on the stock.

Other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports about the company. BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on American Electric Power from $87.00 to $88.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 27th. Guggenheim cut American Electric Power from a buy rating to a neutral rating and set a $81.00 price target for the company. in a research note on Monday, January 22nd. StockNews.com cut shares of American Electric Power from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report on Friday, March 15th. Mizuho cut shares of American Electric Power from a buy rating to a neutral rating and set a $83.00 target price on the stock. in a research report on Thursday, January 11th. Finally, UBS Group cut shares of American Electric Power from a neutral rating to a sell rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $86.00 to $83.00 in a research report on Monday, March 11th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $87.15.

American Electric Power Trading Down 1.4 %

American Electric Power stock opened at $80.91 on Monday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $82.50 and a 200 day simple moving average of $79.81. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.49, a quick ratio of 0.36 and a current ratio of 0.53. American Electric Power has a 52 week low of $69.38 and a 52 week high of $94.73. The stock has a market capitalization of $42.61 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.04, a PEG ratio of 2.90 and a beta of 0.51.

American Electric Power (NASDAQ:AEP) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, February 27th. The company reported $1.23 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.26 by ($0.03). American Electric Power had a return on equity of 11.04% and a net margin of 11.64%. The business had revenue of $4.60 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.12 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $1.05 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that American Electric Power will post 5.54 earnings per share for the current year.

American Electric Power Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 8th. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 9th were issued a dividend of $0.88 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 8th. This represents a $3.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.35%. American Electric Power’s payout ratio is 82.82%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in AEP. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its position in shares of American Electric Power by 14.4% during the 3rd quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 28,591,562 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,150,657,000 after purchasing an additional 3,589,451 shares in the last quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of American Electric Power by 99,268.2% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 2,804,171 shares of the company’s stock valued at $266,256,000 after purchasing an additional 2,801,349 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley grew its position in shares of American Electric Power by 23.7% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 13,357,327 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,268,278,000 after purchasing an additional 2,560,192 shares in the last quarter. Nomura Holdings Inc. purchased a new position in shares of American Electric Power during the 4th quarter valued at $175,667,000. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada grew its position in shares of American Electric Power by 41.7% during the 2nd quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 7,340,523 shares of the company’s stock valued at $618,073,000 after purchasing an additional 2,161,083 shares in the last quarter. 75.24% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

American Electric Power Company Profile

American Electric Power Company, Inc, an electric public utility holding company, engages in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity for sale to retail and wholesale customers in the United States. It operates through Vertically Integrated Utilities, Transmission and Distribution Utilities, AEP Transmission Holdco, and Generation & Marketing segments.