Jones Financial Companies Lllp Increases Stake in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

Jones Financial Companies Lllp increased its holdings in shares of The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 83.0% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 15,124 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after buying an additional 6,860 shares during the period. Jones Financial Companies Lllp’s holdings in AES were worth $195,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in AES. Principal Financial Group Inc. increased its stake in AES by 3.5% during the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 830,873 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $16,667,000 after buying an additional 28,043 shares during the period. Assetmark Inc. increased its stake in AES by 9.5% during the 3rd quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 147,861 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $2,966,000 after buying an additional 12,841 shares during the period. Atria Investments Inc increased its position in shares of AES by 97.4% in the 3rd quarter. Atria Investments Inc now owns 86,553 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,736,000 after purchasing an additional 42,707 shares during the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. increased its position in shares of AES by 3.9% in the 3rd quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 1,596,000 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $32,016,000 after purchasing an additional 59,735 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. increased its position in shares of AES by 3.9% in the 3rd quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. now owns 447,842 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $8,984,000 after purchasing an additional 16,750 shares during the last quarter. 93.13% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

AES has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Hsbc Global Res raised shares of AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Bank of America raised shares of AES from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $11.00 to $13.00 in a research report on Tuesday, March 4th. Seaport Res Ptn downgraded shares of AES from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Monday, March 3rd. Mizuho dropped their price objective on shares of AES from $16.00 to $15.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, March 4th. Finally, HSBC started coverage on shares of AES in a report on Friday, December 13th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $17.00 target price for the company. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $18.30.

AES Trading Up 3.9 %

Shares of AES stock opened at $12.30 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $8.74 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.54, a PEG ratio of 0.82 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $11.27 and a 200-day simple moving average of $14.19. 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 AES Co. has a 12-month low of $9.88 and a 12-month high of $22.21.

AES (NYSE:AES) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 28th. The utilities provider reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.34 by $0.20. The firm had revenue of $2.96 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations 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 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that The AES Co. will post 1.93 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AES Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 1st will be paid a dividend of $0.176 per share. This represents a $0.70 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.72%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 1st. AES’s dividend payout ratio is currently 29.54%.

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.