ProShare Advisors LLC Purchases 20,510 Shares of The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

ProShare Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 12.8% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 180,794 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 20,510 shares during the quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC’s holdings in AES were worth $2,327,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in AES. SRS Capital Advisors Inc. lifted its holdings in AES by 190.3% during the fourth quarter. SRS Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 2,412 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 1,581 shares in the last quarter. Optiver Holding B.V. raised its position in shares of AES by 79.5% during the fourth quarter. Optiver Holding B.V. now owns 2,711 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $35,000 after purchasing an additional 1,201 shares during the period. WR Wealth Planners LLC lifted its holdings in shares of AES by 93.3% during the 4th quarter. WR Wealth Planners LLC now owns 2,837 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $37,000 after purchasing an additional 1,369 shares in the last quarter. Covestor Ltd grew its position in shares of AES by 601.5% in the 4th quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 5,745 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $74,000 after purchasing an additional 4,926 shares during the period. Finally, AlphaQuest LLC increased its stake in AES by 18,047.1% during the 4th quarter. AlphaQuest LLC now owns 6,170 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $79,000 after purchasing an additional 6,136 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.13% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have weighed in on AES. Seaport Res Ptn lowered shares of AES from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Monday, March 3rd. HSBC dropped their price objective on shares of AES from $15.00 to $14.00 in a report on Monday, May 5th. Mizuho reduced their target price on shares of AES from $16.00 to $15.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, March 4th. Citigroup dropped their price target on AES from $23.00 to $14.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, May 9th. Finally, Barclays cut their price target on AES from $17.00 to $12.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, January 27th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, one has issued a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $24.22.

AES Price Performance

Shares of NYSE AES opened at $11.23 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.21, a current ratio of 0.85 and a quick ratio of 0.80. The business has a 50-day moving average of $11.27 and a 200-day moving average of $11.89. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.99 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.80, a PEG ratio of 0.82 and a beta of 0.94. The AES Co. has a fifty-two week low of $9.57 and a fifty-two week high of $22.21.

AES (NYSE:AES) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.27 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.37 by ($0.10). AES had a net margin of 8.34% and a return on equity of 27.30%. The company had revenue of $2.93 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.13 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.60 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that The AES Co. will post 1.93 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

AES Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 1st were given a dividend of $0.176 per share. This represents a $0.70 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.27%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, May 1st. AES’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 38.04%.

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.