Weaver C. Barksdale & Associates Inc. Reduces Stock Position in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

Weaver C. Barksdale & Associates Inc. decreased its holdings in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 1.5% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 61,618 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 949 shares during the period. Weaver C. Barksdale & Associates Inc.’s holdings in AES were worth $1,083,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in AES. Benjamin F. Edwards & Company Inc. boosted its stake in shares of AES by 20.6% during the second quarter. Benjamin F. Edwards & Company Inc. now owns 81,830 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,438,000 after purchasing an additional 13,957 shares during the period. Intech Investment Management LLC boosted its position in AES by 472.2% in the 2nd quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 404,548 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $7,108,000 after buying an additional 333,847 shares during the period. MQS Management LLC bought a new position in AES in the 2nd quarter worth about $304,000. Kentucky Retirement Systems increased its position in shares of AES by 5.3% during the second quarter. Kentucky Retirement Systems now owns 53,553 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $941,000 after acquiring an additional 2,699 shares during the period. Finally, Hsbc Holdings PLC boosted its holdings in shares of AES by 41.1% in the second quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 2,898,119 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $51,293,000 after purchasing an additional 844,888 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 93.13% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

AES has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Barclays decreased their target price on AES from $23.00 to $22.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, July 22nd. Evercore ISI raised shares of AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group initiated coverage on shares of AES in a research report on Wednesday, September 11th. They set a “buy” rating and a $20.00 target price on the stock. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $21.50.

AES Stock Down 1.9 %

AES stock opened at $18.90 on Friday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $17.40 and a 200-day moving average price of $17.99. The AES Co. has a 1-year low of $11.43 and a 1-year high of $22.21. The stock has a market capitalization of $13.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.25 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.63, a current ratio of 0.97 and a quick ratio of 0.91.

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, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.36 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $2.94 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.22 billion. AES had a return on equity of 32.74% and a net margin of 6.07%. The company’s revenue was down 2.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.21 earnings per share. Equities research analysts forecast that The AES Co. will post 1.91 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AES Announces Dividend

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

AES Company Profile

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.