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

Morgan Stanley reaffirmed their overweight rating on shares of AES (NYSE:AES) in a research report sent to investors on Monday morning, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a $25.00 price objective on the utilities provider’s stock.

Separately, Barclays lowered their target price 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 analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, AES currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $21.57.

AES Stock Up 3.7 %

AES stock opened at $17.25 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $12.26 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 52.27, a PEG ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a current ratio of 0.68, a quick ratio of 0.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.42. AES has a 12 month low of $11.43 and a 12 month high of $25.74. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $16.27 and a two-hundred day moving average of $16.53.

AES (NYSE:AES) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 27th. The utilities provider reported $0.73 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.67 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $2.97 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.36 billion. AES had a net margin of 2.12% and a return on equity of 38.76%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 3.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.49 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that AES will post 1.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

AES Dividend Announcement

The business 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 dividend of $0.1725 per share. This represents a $0.69 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.00%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, April 30th. AES’s dividend payout ratio is presently 209.10%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On AES

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake 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 buying an additional 91,247 shares during the period. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. boosted its stake in AES by 81.2% in 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 during the last quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of AES by 370.1% during the 3rd 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 during the period. Quadrature Capital Ltd boosted its holdings in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 96,808 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Channing Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in AES by 16.7% in the third quarter. Channing Capital Management LLC now owns 352,276 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $5,355,000 after acquiring an additional 50,341 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.13% of the company’s stock.

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.