AES (NYSE:AES) Rating Lowered to “Underperform” at Jefferies Financial Group

AES (NYSE:AES) was downgraded by research analysts at Jefferies Financial Group from a “hold” rating to an “underperform” rating in a report issued on Tuesday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. They presently have a $9.00 price target on the utilities provider’s stock, down from their previous price target of $10.00. Jefferies Financial Group’s price objective indicates a potential downside of 11.29% from the stock’s current price.

Other analysts have also issued research reports about the company. HSBC dropped their price objective on AES from $15.00 to $14.00 in a research note on Monday, May 5th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on shares of AES from $108.00 to $112.00 in a research report on Friday, May 2nd. Bank of America upgraded shares of AES from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $11.00 to $13.00 in a research report on Tuesday, March 4th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on AES from $16.00 to $14.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, April 24th. Finally, Susquehanna lowered their price target on AES from $16.00 to $15.00 and set a “positive” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, March 5th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, AES has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $24.22.

AES Price Performance

Shares of AES stock opened at $10.15 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.21, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a current ratio of 0.85. AES has a 52-week low of $9.57 and a 52-week high of $22.21. The company has a fifty day moving average of $11.23 and a 200-day moving average of $11.88. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.05, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.82 and a beta of 0.94.

AES (NYSE:AES) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.27 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.37 by ($0.10). The business had revenue of $2.93 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.13 billion. AES had a return on equity of 27.30% and a net margin of 8.34%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.60 earnings per share. Equities research analysts expect that AES will post 1.93 EPS for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On AES

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in AES. Point72 Asset Management L.P. bought a new position in shares of AES in the 4th quarter worth about $121,627,000. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in shares of AES by 19.5% during the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 49,173,626 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $632,865,000 after purchasing an additional 8,027,426 shares during the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its position in shares of AES by 35.7% in the 4th quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 28,571,119 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $367,499,000 after purchasing an additional 7,519,129 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. grew its stake in shares of AES by 64.2% in the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 15,948,807 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $205,261,000 after buying an additional 6,238,087 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sound Shore Management Inc. CT bought a new position in AES during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $69,083,000. Institutional investors own 93.13% of the company’s stock.

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.