Jag Capital Management LLC Has $548,000 Holdings in Ameren Co. (NYSE:AEE)

Jag Capital Management LLC cut its stake in Ameren Co. (NYSE:AEE) by 9.0% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 6,152 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 605 shares during the quarter. Jag Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Ameren were worth $548,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. State Street Corp boosted its stake in shares of Ameren by 2.6% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 13,139,956 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,149,221,000 after buying an additional 334,752 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Ameren by 1.9% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 6,672,164 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $581,661,000 after buying an additional 127,287 shares during the last quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC boosted its stake in shares of Ameren by 0.9% during the 3rd quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 4,561,994 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $398,992,000 after buying an additional 39,300 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its stake in shares of Ameren by 59.8% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 2,631,580 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $230,158,000 after buying an additional 984,879 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec boosted its stake in shares of Ameren by 26.1% during the 3rd quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec now owns 2,318,537 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $202,779,000 after buying an additional 479,668 shares during the last quarter. 79.09% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. Evercore ISI upgraded shares of Ameren from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $89.00 to $104.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Barclays cut shares of Ameren from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and upped their target price for the company from $88.00 to $95.00 in a report on Monday, January 27th. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of Ameren from $86.00 to $94.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on shares of Ameren from $100.00 to $105.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 18th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $92.70.

Ameren Stock Up 2.1 %

Ameren stock opened at $103.71 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $27.99 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.46, a P/E/G ratio of 2.97 and a beta of 0.49. The company has a quick ratio of 0.44, a current ratio of 0.66 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.41. Ameren Co. has a twelve month low of $69.39 and a twelve month high of $103.87. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $94.21 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $89.94.

Ameren (NYSE:AEE) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 13th. The utilities provider reported $0.77 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.83 by ($0.06). Ameren had a net margin of 15.51% and a return on equity of 10.34%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.60 earnings per share. As a group, analysts expect that Ameren Co. will post 4.93 EPS for the current year.

Ameren Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 31st. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, March 11th will be given a dividend of $0.71 per share. This represents a $2.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.74%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, March 11th. This is a positive change from Ameren’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.67. Ameren’s dividend payout ratio is presently 64.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Craig S. Ivey sold 2,716 shares of Ameren stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $98.27, for a total transaction of $266,901.32. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 14,495 shares in the company, valued at $1,424,423.65. This trade represents a 15.78 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.42% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

About Ameren

Ameren Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a public utility holding company in the United States. The company operates through four segments: Ameren Missouri, Ameren Illinois Electric Distribution, Ameren Illinois Natural Gas, and Ameren Transmission. It engages in the rate-regulated electric generation, transmission, and distribution activities; and rate-regulated natural gas distribution business.