16,719 Shares in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) Acquired by Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC

Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new position in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm acquired 16,719 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $322,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of AES by 1.6% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 83,790,219 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $2,155,923,000 after buying an additional 1,285,423 shares during the period. FMR LLC boosted its stake in shares of AES by 38.6% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 36,821,650 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $559,689,000 after buying an additional 10,256,781 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its stake in shares of AES by 0.3% during the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 33,324,327 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $857,435,000 after buying an additional 102,389 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of AES by 2.1% during the 1st quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 13,753,238 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $330,415,000 after buying an additional 283,075 shares during the period. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted its stake in shares of AES by 4.7% during the 3rd quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 13,555,375 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $206,042,000 after buying an additional 606,786 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.13% of the company’s stock.

AES Stock Performance

Shares of AES opened at $16.27 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $11.56 billion, a PE ratio of 49.30 and a beta of 1.08. The AES Co. has a one year low of $11.43 and a one year high of $24.54. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.42, a current ratio of 0.68 and a quick ratio of 0.61. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $16.47 and its 200 day moving average price is $16.64.

AES (NYSE:AES) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, February 27th. The utilities provider reported $0.73 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.67 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $2.97 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.36 billion. AES had a net margin of 2.12% and a return on equity of 38.76%. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 3.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.49 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that The AES Co. will post 1.91 earnings per share for the current year.

AES Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, May 1st will be issued a dividend of $0.1725 per share. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, April 30th. This represents a $0.69 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.24%. AES’s payout ratio is 209.10%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have issued reports on AES. Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $25.00 target price on shares of AES in a research note on Monday, March 25th. Royal Bank of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and set a $22.00 price target on shares of AES in a report on Tuesday, April 9th. Mizuho started coverage on shares of AES in a report on Thursday. They set a “buy” rating and a $21.00 price target on the stock. Barclays cut their price target on shares of AES from $21.00 to $20.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, March 14th. Finally, Argus restated a “buy” rating and set a $25.00 price target on shares of AES in a report on Tuesday, March 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $22.13.

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.