AES (NYSE:AES) Upgraded at Evercore ISI

Evercore ISI upgraded shares of AES (NYSE:AES) to a strong-buy rating in a report released on Wednesday, Zacks.com reports.

Other equities analysts have also recently issued research reports about the stock. Jefferies Financial Group assumed coverage on shares of AES in a research report on Wednesday, September 11th. They issued a buy rating and a $20.00 price objective on the stock. Seaport Res Ptn lowered shares of AES from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 21st. Finally, Barclays cut their target price on shares of AES from $23.00 to $22.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, July 22nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $21.50.

AES Price Performance

AES opened at $18.90 on Wednesday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $17.40 and a 200 day moving average of $18.03. 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 has a 12 month low of $11.43 and a 12 month high of $22.21. The company has a market cap of $13.43 billion, a PE ratio of 26.25 and a beta of 1.07.

AES (NYSE:AES) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.38 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.36 by $0.02. AES had a net margin of 6.07% and a return on equity of 32.74%. The firm had revenue of $2.94 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.22 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.21 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts expect that AES will post 1.91 EPS for the current year.

AES Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 1st were paid a dividend of $0.1725 per share. This represents a $0.69 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.65%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 1st. AES’s payout ratio is currently 95.83%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On AES

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of AES. Capital World Investors boosted its stake in AES by 76.9% during the fourth quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 71,348,566 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,373,460,000 after acquiring an additional 31,009,718 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors raised its position in AES by 11.4% in the first quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 77,641,395 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,392,110,000 after acquiring an additional 7,969,594 shares during the period. M&G Plc bought a new position in AES in the first quarter worth approximately $123,272,000. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its position in AES by 70.8% in the fourth quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 6,441,980 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $124,008,000 after acquiring an additional 2,670,001 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in AES by 2.2% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 89,725,232 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,608,773,000 after acquiring an additional 1,929,523 shares during the period. Institutional investors 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.