AES (NYSE:AES) Cut to “Sell” at Wall Street Zen

Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of AES (NYSE:AES) from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research note issued to investors on Saturday morning.

Several other research analysts have also commented on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price target on shares of AES from $16.00 to $14.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, April 24th. Susquehanna lowered their price objective on AES from $16.00 to $15.00 and set a “positive” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, March 5th. Mizuho lowered their price objective on AES from $16.00 to $15.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, March 4th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered AES from a “hold” rating to an “underperform” rating and lowered their target price for the company from $10.00 to $9.00 in a report on Tuesday, May 20th. Finally, Barclays lowered their target price on AES from $17.00 to $12.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, January 27th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, one has assigned a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $24.22.

AES Trading Up 3.9%

NYSE:AES opened at $10.01 on Friday. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $11.04 and its two-hundred day moving average is $11.75. 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 stock has a market cap of $7.13 billion, a PE ratio of 6.95, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.82 and a beta of 0.94. AES has a fifty-two week low of $9.46 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 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate 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 for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.13 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.60 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was down 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that AES will post 1.93 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of AES

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of AES. FMR LLC boosted its stake in AES by 19.5% in the fourth 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. boosted its stake in AES by 35.7% in the fourth 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. Orbis Allan Gray Ltd boosted its stake in AES by 21.8% in the first quarter. Orbis Allan Gray Ltd now owns 27,518,952 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $341,785,000 after purchasing an additional 4,930,252 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. lifted its stake in shares of AES by 30.4% during the first quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 20,790,956 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $258,224,000 after acquiring an additional 4,842,149 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in AES by 2.3% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 16,895,678 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $216,862,000 after purchasing an additional 381,761 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.13% of the company’s stock.

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.