Argent Trust Co Sells 3,000 Shares of The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

Argent Trust Co cut its holdings in shares of The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 18.6% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 13,165 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 3,000 shares during the quarter. Argent Trust Co’s holdings in AES were worth $231,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Principal Securities Inc. acquired a new position in AES in the 4th quarter valued at $57,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in AES by 0.4% during the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,559,517 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $49,273,000 after purchasing an additional 10,002 shares during the period. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S grew its stake in AES by 36.4% during the fourth quarter. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S now owns 26,748 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $515,000 after buying an additional 7,141 shares in the last quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. increased its holdings in AES by 145.2% in the 4th quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 145,108 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $2,793,000 after buying an additional 85,926 shares during the period. Finally, Coldstream Capital Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of AES by 19.4% during the 4th quarter. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. now owns 22,014 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $424,000 after acquiring an additional 3,582 shares during the period. 93.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

AES Price Performance

AES stock opened at $18.90 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $13.43 billion, a PE ratio of 26.25 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a current ratio of 0.97, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.63. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $17.40 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $18.01. The AES Co. has a 12 month low of $11.43 and a 12 month high of $22.21.

AES (NYSE:AES) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.38 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.36 by $0.02. AES had a net margin of 6.07% and a return on equity of 32.74%. The business had revenue of $2.94 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.22 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.21 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 2.8% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that The AES Co. will post 1.91 EPS for the current year.

AES Dividend Announcement

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

AES has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Barclays decreased their price objective 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. Evercore ISI upgraded AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group began coverage on AES in a research report on Wednesday, September 11th. They set a “buy” rating and a $20.00 price objective for the company. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $21.50.

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.