AES (NYSE:AES) Price Target Increased to $23.00 by Analysts at Barclays

AES (NYSE:AES) had its target price upped by Barclays from $22.00 to $23.00 in a research report released on Monday morning, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an overweight rating on the utilities provider’s stock.

A number of other research firms have also recently commented on AES. Jefferies Financial Group began coverage on AES in a report on Wednesday, September 11th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $20.00 price objective on the stock. Evercore ISI raised AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, AES has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $22.57.

AES Trading Down 0.6 %

Shares of NYSE:AES opened at $16.98 on Monday. The company has a market capitalization of $12.07 billion, a PE ratio of 23.58 and a beta of 1.07. AES has a 12-month low of $14.33 and a 12-month high of $22.21. The business has a 50 day moving average of $17.99 and a two-hundred day moving average of $18.32. The company has a current ratio of 0.97, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.63.

AES (NYSE:AES) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.38 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.36 by $0.02. AES had a return on equity of 32.74% and a net margin of 6.07%. The firm had revenue of $2.94 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.22 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.21 EPS. AES’s revenue for the quarter was down 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts forecast that AES will post 1.9 EPS for the current year.

AES Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Friday, November 1st will be issued a $0.1725 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, November 1st. This represents a $0.69 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.06%. AES’s dividend payout ratio is presently 95.83%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On AES

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of AES. Nomura Holdings Inc. acquired a new position in shares of AES in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $260,000. NBC Securities Inc. grew its stake in shares of AES by 690.9% in the first quarter. NBC Securities Inc. now owns 7,118 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $127,000 after acquiring an additional 6,218 shares in the last quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC purchased a new stake in shares of AES during the first quarter worth $211,000. AdvisorNet Financial Inc raised its stake in shares of AES by 7.2% in the first quarter. AdvisorNet Financial Inc now owns 42,036 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $754,000 after acquiring an additional 2,809 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Riverview Trust Co purchased a new position in AES in the first quarter valued at $33,000. 93.13% of the stock is 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.