AES’s (AES) Overweight Rating Reiterated at Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley restated their overweight rating on shares of AES (NYSE:AES) in a research report report published on Monday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a $25.00 price objective on the utilities provider’s stock.

Separately, Barclays decreased their price target on AES from $21.00 to $20.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, March 14th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $21.57.

AES Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE AES opened at $17.25 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.42, a current ratio of 0.68 and a quick ratio of 0.61. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $16.27 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $16.53. AES has a one year low of $11.43 and a one year high of $25.74. The firm has a market cap of $12.26 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 52.27, a P/E/G ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 1.07.

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

AES Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, May 1st will be issued a dividend of $0.1725 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, April 30th. This represents a $0.69 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.00%. AES’s payout ratio is 209.10%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On AES

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. grew its position in shares of AES by 15.5% during the third quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 679,615 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $10,330,000 after purchasing an additional 91,247 shares in the last quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. grew its position in AES by 81.2% in the third quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. now owns 351,220 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $5,339,000 after acquiring an additional 157,421 shares in the last quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC grew its position in AES by 370.1% in the third quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 116,537 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,770,000 after acquiring an additional 91,749 shares in the last quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd lifted its stake in AES by 54.8% in the third quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd now owns 273,365 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $4,157,000 after purchasing an additional 96,808 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Channing Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in AES by 16.7% in the third quarter. Channing Capital Management LLC now owns 352,276 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $5,355,000 after purchasing an additional 50,341 shares during the last quarter. 93.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.