Phillips Wealth Planners LLC Decreases Stock Position in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

Phillips Wealth Planners LLC lowered its stake in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 57.0% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 10,434 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 13,819 shares during the period. Phillips Wealth Planners LLC’s holdings in AES were worth $125,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of AES. Rock Point Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of AES by 34.6% in the third quarter. Rock Point Advisors LLC now owns 760,775 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $15,261,000 after purchasing an additional 195,460 shares during the last quarter. Leibman Financial Services Inc. bought a new stake in shares of AES in the fourth quarter worth about $2,375,000. M&G PLC grew its stake in shares of AES by 12.7% in the third 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 last quarter. Hudson Valley Investment Advisors Inc. ADV grew its stake in shares of AES by 12.1% in the fourth quarter. Hudson Valley Investment Advisors Inc. ADV now owns 406,443 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $5,231,000 after purchasing an additional 43,792 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UMB Bank n.a. grew its stake in shares of AES by 5,143.7% in the fourth quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 76,977 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $991,000 after purchasing an additional 75,509 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 93.13% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts recently issued reports on the company. Barclays cut their target price on AES from $23.00 to $17.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Hsbc Global Res raised AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Bank of America began coverage on AES in a research report on Monday, November 25th. They set an “underperform” rating and a $11.00 price objective on the stock. Mizuho cut their price objective on AES from $24.00 to $16.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, November 21st. Finally, Susquehanna cut their price objective on AES from $24.00 to $21.00 and set a “positive” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, November 5th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating, eight have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $19.30.

AES Stock Performance

Shares of AES opened at $11.12 on Thursday. 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 business’s 50 day moving average price is $12.87 and its 200-day moving average price is $15.78. The AES Co. has a 52 week low of $11.09 and a 52 week high of $22.21. The stock has a market cap of $7.91 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.72, a P/E/G ratio of 0.59 and a beta of 1.00.

AES (NYSE:AES) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The utilities provider reported $0.71 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.60 by $0.11. AES had a return on equity of 27.30% and a net margin of 8.34%. The firm had revenue of $3.29 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.46 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.60 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 4.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts anticipate that The AES Co. will post 1.95 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

AES Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Friday, January 31st will be issued a $0.176 dividend. This is a positive change from AES’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.17. This represents a $0.70 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.33%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 31st. AES’s payout ratio is presently 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.