Susquehanna Lowers AES (NYSE:AES) Price Target to $15.00

AES (NYSE:AES) had its target price trimmed by Susquehanna from $16.00 to $15.00 in a research note published on Wednesday morning,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a positive rating on the utilities provider’s stock.

A number of other equities analysts have also weighed in on AES. Seaport Res Ptn lowered shares of AES from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Monday. Barclays lowered their price target on shares of AES from $17.00 to $12.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, January 27th. Bank of America raised shares of AES from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $11.00 to $13.00 in a report on Tuesday. Mizuho lowered their price target on shares of AES from $16.00 to $15.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday. Finally, Hsbc Global Res raised shares of AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, AES has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $18.30.

AES Stock Performance

AES opened at $10.97 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 0.85, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.21. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $11.43 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $14.43. AES has a 1-year low of $9.88 and a 1-year high of $22.21. The company has a market cap of $7.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.61, a PEG ratio of 0.82 and a beta of 0.99.

AES (NYSE:AES) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 28th. The utilities provider reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.34 by $0.20. The company had revenue of $2.96 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.07 billion. AES had a net margin of 8.34% and a return on equity of 27.30%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.73 earnings per share. On average, analysts expect that AES will post 1.93 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AES Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 1st will be paid a dividend of $0.176 per share. This represents a $0.70 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.42%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 1st. AES’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 29.54%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. FMR LLC raised its stake in shares of AES by 19.5% during the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 49,173,626 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $632,865,000 after acquiring an additional 8,027,426 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in AES by 18.2% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 38,651,752 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $775,354,000 after acquiring an additional 5,960,546 shares in the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its holdings in AES by 35.7% in the fourth quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 28,571,119 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $367,499,000 after acquiring an additional 7,519,129 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in AES by 2.3% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 16,895,678 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $216,862,000 after acquiring an additional 381,761 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Invesco Ltd. boosted its holdings in AES by 64.2% in the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 15,948,807 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $205,261,000 after acquiring an additional 6,238,087 shares in the last quarter. 93.13% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.