Rockland Trust Co. Grows Holdings in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

Rockland Trust Co. increased its position in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 20.2% in the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 14,900 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 2,505 shares during the period. Rockland Trust Co.’s holdings in AES were worth $299,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Rise Advisors LLC grew its holdings in AES by 92.4% in the 2nd quarter. Rise Advisors LLC now owns 1,499 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $26,000 after buying an additional 720 shares in the last quarter. Rothschild Investment LLC purchased a new stake in shares of AES in the second quarter valued at $28,000. UMB Bank n.a. boosted its position in AES by 102.3% during the 2nd quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 1,776 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 898 shares during the period. Riverview Trust Co purchased a new position in AES during the first quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Finally, nVerses Capital LLC acquired a new position in shares of AES in the second quarter worth $33,000. 93.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently commented on the company. Evercore ISI upgraded AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. Barclays cut their price objective on AES from $23.00 to $22.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, July 22nd. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group started coverage on shares of AES in a report on Wednesday, September 11th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $20.00 price target for the company. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $21.50.

AES Price Performance

Shares of NYSE AES traded down $0.22 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $18.91. 10,668,366 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 8,167,876. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $17.86 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $18.28. The AES Co. has a twelve month low of $11.43 and a twelve month high of $22.21. The company has a market cap of $13.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.26 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.63, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a current ratio of 0.97.

AES (NYSE:AES) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.38 earnings per share 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 posted $0.21 earnings per share. AES’s revenue for the quarter was down 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts forecast that The AES Co. will post 1.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AES Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 15th. Stockholders 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 (DPR) is currently 95.83%.

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.