Snowden Capital Advisors LLC Boosts Holdings in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

Snowden Capital Advisors LLC increased its holdings in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 119.3% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 39,425 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 21,447 shares during the period. Snowden Capital Advisors LLC’s holdings in AES were worth $507,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in AES. Point72 Asset Management L.P. purchased a new position in AES in the 4th quarter worth approximately $121,627,000. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in AES by 19.5% in the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 49,173,626 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $632,865,000 after purchasing an additional 8,027,426 shares in the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its holdings in AES by 35.7% in the 4th quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 28,571,119 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $367,499,000 after purchasing an additional 7,519,129 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. lifted its holdings in AES by 64.2% in the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 15,948,807 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $205,261,000 after purchasing an additional 6,238,087 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sound Shore Management Inc. CT bought a new stake in AES in the 4th quarter worth approximately $69,083,000. 93.13% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have issued reports on AES. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on AES from $16.00 to $14.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, April 24th. Citigroup reduced their price objective on AES from $23.00 to $14.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, May 9th. Susquehanna reduced their price objective on AES from $16.00 to $15.00 and set a “positive” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, March 5th. Mizuho reduced their price objective on AES from $16.00 to $15.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, March 4th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group downgraded AES from a “hold” rating to an “underperform” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $10.00 to $9.00 in a research note on Tuesday. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, one has assigned a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $24.22.

AES Stock Performance

NYSE AES opened at $11.23 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $7.99 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.80, a P/E/G ratio of 0.82 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.21, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a current ratio of 0.85. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $11.27 and its 200-day moving average price is $11.89. 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 released its earnings results on Thursday, May 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.27 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.37 by ($0.10). The company had revenue of $2.93 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.13 billion. AES had a net margin of 8.34% and a return on equity of 27.30%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.60 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that The AES Co. will post 1.93 earnings per share for the current year.

AES Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 1st were given a $0.176 dividend. 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 presently 38.04%.

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.