The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) Short Interest Update

The AES Co. (NYSE:AES - Get Free Report) saw a significant increase in short interest in March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 13,810,000 shares, an increase of 23.1% from the March 15th total of 11,220,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 8,590,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 1.6 days.

AES Trading Down 4.1 %

Shares of AES stock traded down $0.69 during trading on Monday, hitting $16.16. The company's stock had a trading volume of 10,430,804 shares, compared to its average volume of 8,447,920. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.42, a current ratio of 0.68 and a quick ratio of 0.61. AES has a 52 week low of $11.43 and a 52 week high of $24.59. The stock has a market cap of $11.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 48.97 and a beta of 1.08. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $16.49 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $16.64.

AES (NYSE:AES - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, February 27th. The utilities provider reported $0.73 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.67 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $2.97 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.36 billion. AES had a net margin of 2.12% and a return on equity of 38.76%. AES's revenue for the quarter was down 3.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.49 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that AES will post 1.91 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AES Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Investors of record on Wednesday, May 1st will be issued a $0.1725 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, April 30th. This represents a $0.69 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.27%. AES's payout ratio is 209.09%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On AES

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of AES by 1.6% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 83,790,219 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $2,155,923,000 after purchasing an additional 1,285,423 shares during the period. Capital World Investors raised its holdings in shares of AES by 76.9% during the fourth quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 71,348,566 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $1,373,460,000 after purchasing an additional 31,009,718 shares during the period. Capital International Investors raised its holdings in shares of AES by 3.8% during the fourth quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 69,671,801 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $1,341,277,000 after purchasing an additional 2,537,128 shares during the period. FMR LLC raised its holdings in shares of AES by 38.6% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 36,821,650 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $559,689,000 after purchasing an additional 10,256,781 shares during the period. Finally, State Street Corp raised its holdings in shares of AES by 0.3% during the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 33,324,327 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $857,435,000 after purchasing an additional 102,389 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.13% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

AES has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Barclays decreased their price objective on shares of AES from $21.00 to $20.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, March 14th. Argus reissued a "buy" rating and issued a $25.00 price objective on shares of AES in a research note on Tuesday, March 26th. UBS Group decreased their price objective on shares of AES from $20.00 to $19.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, April 3rd. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an "overweight" rating and set a $25.00 target price on shares of AES in a research note on Monday, March 25th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an "outperform" rating and set a $22.00 target price on shares of AES in a research note on Tuesday, April 9th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, AES has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $22.29.

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.

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