Brokerages Set The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) Price Target at $22.13

Shares of The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) have earned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the seven ratings firms that are currently covering the stock, Marketbeat reports. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 1 year price objective among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $22.13.

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on AES shares. Morgan Stanley restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $25.00 price objective on shares of AES in a research note on Monday, March 25th. Mizuho started coverage on shares of AES in a research note on Thursday, April 18th. They set a “buy” rating and a $21.00 price target for the company. UBS Group lowered their price objective on AES from $20.00 to $19.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, April 3rd. Argus restated a “buy” rating and set a $25.00 target price on shares of AES in a research report on Tuesday, March 26th. Finally, Barclays lowered their price target on AES from $21.00 to $20.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, March 14th.

AES Stock Down 1.4 %

NYSE AES opened at $18.67 on Thursday. AES has a twelve month low of $11.43 and a twelve month high of $23.07. The stock has a market cap of $13.27 billion, a PE ratio of 25.93 and a beta of 1.08. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $16.73 and a 200 day simple moving average of $17.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.42, a quick ratio of 0.61 and a current ratio of 0.68.

AES (NYSE:AES) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 27th. The utilities provider reported $0.73 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.67 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $2.97 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.36 billion. AES had a return on equity of 39.82% and a net margin of 4.40%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 3.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.49 EPS. On average, research analysts forecast that AES will post 1.91 EPS for the current year.

AES Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, May 1st will be paid a $0.1725 dividend. This represents a $0.69 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.70%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, April 30th. AES’s dividend payout ratio is currently 95.83%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. increased its position in AES by 15.5% in the 3rd quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 679,615 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $10,330,000 after acquiring an additional 91,247 shares in the last quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC raised its position in AES by 370.1% in the 3rd quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 116,537 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,770,000 after purchasing an additional 91,749 shares during the last quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. lifted its holdings in AES by 81.2% during the 3rd quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. now owns 351,220 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $5,339,000 after buying an additional 157,421 shares in the last quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd boosted its position in AES by 54.8% in the 3rd quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd now owns 273,365 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $4,157,000 after buying an additional 96,808 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of AES in the 4th quarter valued at $863,000. 93.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.