Rafferty Asset Management LLC Decreases Stock Holdings in The AES Corporation $AES

Key Points

• Rafferty Asset Management LLC reduced its stake in The AES Corporation by 31.6%, owning 63,983 shares worth approximately $795,000 after selling 29,492 shares in the first quarter.
• Analysts have varied price targets for AES, with Citigroup lowering it from $23.00 to $14.00, while Barclays increased theirs from $12.00 to $14.00, highlighting mixed sentiment in the market.
• The AES Corporation reported a quarterly EPS of $0.51, exceeding analyst expectations, but its revenue declined by 3.0% year-over-year, totaling $2.86 billion.

Rafferty Asset Management LLC lowered its position in The AES Corporation (NYSE:AES - Free Report) by 31.6% during the first quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 63,983 shares of the utilities provider's stock after selling 29,492 shares during the quarter. Rafferty Asset Management LLC's holdings in AES were worth $795,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Community Trust & Investment Co. lifted its stake in shares of AES by 37.4% in the first quarter. Community Trust & Investment Co. now owns 291,418 shares of the utilities provider's stock worth $3,619,000 after acquiring an additional 79,355 shares in the last quarter. Lewis Asset Management LLC acquired a new stake in AES in the first quarter worth approximately $1,172,000. Principal Financial Group Inc. raised its stake in AES by 2.5% during the 1st quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 824,080 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $10,235,000 after purchasing an additional 20,109 shares during the period. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. raised its stake in AES by 13.3% during the 1st quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,270,543 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $15,780,000 after purchasing an additional 148,772 shares during the period. Finally, Foundry Partners LLC increased its stake in shares of AES by 39.6% in the first quarter. Foundry Partners LLC now owns 1,349,118 shares of the utilities provider's stock worth $16,756,000 after acquiring an additional 382,843 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.13% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts have commented on AES shares. Citigroup lowered their target price on shares of AES from $23.00 to $14.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, May 9th. Argus reissued a "hold" rating on shares of AES in a research report on Tuesday, May 27th. Susquehanna lifted their target price on shares of AES from $15.00 to $16.00 and gave the company a "positive" rating in a research note on Monday, July 21st. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of AES from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Saturday, August 2nd. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lowered shares of AES from a "hold" rating to an "underperform" rating and decreased their price target for the company from $10.00 to $9.00 in a report on Tuesday, May 20th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have assigned a Buy rating, two have assigned a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $24.67.

AES Price Performance

Shares of AES stock traded down $0.18 on Wednesday, hitting $13.23. 6,076,346 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 7,384,683. The firm's 50-day simple moving average is $12.85 and its 200 day simple moving average is $11.64. The company has a current ratio of 0.82, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.46. The company has a market cap of $9.42 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.32, a P/E/G ratio of 1.62 and a beta of 0.92. The AES Corporation has a 12-month low of $9.46 and a 12-month high of $20.30.

AES (NYSE:AES - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, July 31st. The utilities provider reported $0.51 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.39 by $0.12. The company had revenue of $2.86 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.97 billion. AES had a net margin of 8.42% and a return on equity of 19.02%. The firm's quarterly revenue was down 3.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.38 EPS. Analysts expect that The AES Corporation will post 1.93 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

AES Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 15th. Investors of record on Friday, August 1st were given a dividend of $0.176 per share. This represents a $0.70 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 1st. AES's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.30%.

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.