AES (NYSE:AES) Earns “Buy” Rating from Argus

Argus reiterated their buy rating on shares of AES (NYSE:AES) in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday morning, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a $25.00 price objective on the utilities provider’s stock.

AES has been the topic of a number of other reports. Barclays dropped their price target on shares of AES from $21.00 to $20.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, March 14th. Morgan Stanley reiterated an overweight rating and set a $25.00 price target on shares of AES in a research note on Monday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $21.57.

AES Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:AES opened at $17.92 on Tuesday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $16.28 and a 200-day simple moving average of $16.54. AES has a one year low of $11.43 and a one year high of $25.74. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.42, a quick ratio of 0.61 and a current ratio of 0.68. The stock has a market capitalization of $12.74 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 54.30, a PEG ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 1.07.

AES (NYSE:AES) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, February 27th. The utilities provider reported $0.73 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.67 by $0.06. AES had a net margin of 2.12% and a return on equity of 38.76%. The business had revenue of $2.97 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.36 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.49 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was down 3.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts predict that AES will post 1.9 EPS for the current year.

AES Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, May 1st will be given a dividend of $0.1725 per share. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, April 30th. This represents a $0.69 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.85%. AES’s payout ratio is currently 209.10%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted 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 valued at $2,155,923,000 after purchasing an additional 1,285,423 shares in the last quarter. Capital World Investors lifted its stake in shares of AES by 76.9% during the fourth quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 71,348,566 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,373,460,000 after buying an additional 31,009,718 shares during the period. Capital International Investors lifted its stake in shares of AES by 3.8% during the fourth quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 69,671,801 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,341,277,000 after buying an additional 2,537,128 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. lifted its stake in shares of AES by 1.9% during the second quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 46,239,885 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $958,553,000 after buying an additional 844,270 shares during the period. Finally, FMR LLC lifted its stake in shares of AES by 38.6% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 36,821,650 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $559,689,000 after buying an additional 10,256,781 shares during the period. 93.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.