Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. Raises Stake in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 1.3% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 6,694,239 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 82,956 shares during the quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc.’s holdings in AES were worth $134,286,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale lifted its position in shares of AES by 161.8% in the second quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale now owns 107,016 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $2,035,000 after acquiring an additional 66,145 shares in the last quarter. M&G PLC boosted its stake in AES by 12.7% in the 3rd quarter. M&G PLC now owns 6,511,760 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $130,235,000 after purchasing an additional 732,457 shares during the period. Summit Global Investments purchased a new stake in AES during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $816,000. Empower Advisory Group LLC lifted its holdings in shares of AES by 5.8% in the third quarter. Empower Advisory Group LLC now owns 3,522,334 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $70,658,000 after buying an additional 193,755 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Lazard Asset Management LLC boosted its position in shares of AES by 178.5% during the first quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 689,879 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $12,369,000 after acquiring an additional 442,184 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 93.13% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have commented on AES shares. Evercore ISI upgraded shares of AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. Susquehanna dropped their price target on AES from $24.00 to $21.00 and set a “positive” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, November 5th. Mizuho reduced their price objective on AES from $24.00 to $16.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday. Jefferies Financial Group assumed coverage on shares of AES in a report on Wednesday, September 11th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $20.00 target price for the company. Finally, Barclays increased their price objective on shares of AES from $22.00 to $23.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, October 21st. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $21.38.

AES Trading Down 1.6 %

AES stock opened at $13.04 on Monday. The AES Co. has a twelve month low of $12.97 and a twelve month high of $22.21. The stock has a market capitalization of $9.27 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.06 and a beta of 1.10. The company has a quick ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 0.85 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.21. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $16.85 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $17.89.

AES (NYSE:AES) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 31st. The utilities provider reported $0.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.60 by $0.11. AES had a net margin of 8.34% and a return on equity of 27.30%. The company had revenue of $3.29 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.46 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.60 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 4.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts anticipate that The AES Co. will post 1.93 earnings per share for the current year.

AES Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Friday, November 1st were issued a dividend of $0.1725 per share. This represents a $0.69 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.29%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, November 1st. AES’s payout ratio is currently 47.92%.

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.