Ellsworth Advisors LLC Increases Holdings in The AES Corporation $AES

Ellsworth Advisors LLC increased its stake in The AES Corporation (NYSE:AES) by 29.5% in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 127,568 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 29,053 shares during the quarter. Ellsworth Advisors LLC’s holdings in AES were worth $1,584,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in AES. Orbis Allan Gray Ltd grew its position in AES by 21.8% during the first quarter. Orbis Allan Gray Ltd now owns 27,518,952 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $341,785,000 after buying an additional 4,930,252 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. grew its position in AES by 30.4% during the first quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 20,790,956 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $258,224,000 after buying an additional 4,842,149 shares in the last quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. purchased a new position in AES during the fourth quarter worth about $121,627,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in AES by 3.7% during the first quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 7,134,771 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $88,614,000 after buying an additional 255,512 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. grew its position in AES by 25.0% during the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 7,115,438 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $88,374,000 after buying an additional 1,421,899 shares in the last quarter. 93.13% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently commented on AES. Susquehanna boosted their target price on AES from $15.00 to $16.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a research report on Monday, July 21st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on AES from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 22nd. Jefferies Financial Group cut AES from a “hold” rating to an “underperform” rating and reduced their target price for the stock from $10.00 to $9.00 in a research report on Tuesday, May 20th. Argus reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of AES in a research report on Tuesday, May 27th. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded AES from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 2nd. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have issued a Buy rating, two have assigned a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $24.67.

AES Price Performance

Shares of AES stock opened at $12.74 on Thursday. 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 firm has a market capitalization of $9.07 billion, a PE ratio of 8.97, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.52 and a beta of 0.92. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $13.05 and its 200-day moving average price is $11.72. The AES Corporation has a 12 month low of $9.46 and a 12 month high of $20.30.

AES (NYSE:AES) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, July 31st. The utilities provider reported $0.51 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.39 by $0.12. The company had revenue of $2.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.97 billion. AES had a return on equity of 19.02% and a net margin of 8.42%.AES’s quarterly revenue was down 3.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.38 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that The AES Corporation will post 1.93 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AES Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 15th. Investors of record on Friday, August 1st were issued a dividend of $0.176 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, August 1st. This represents a $0.70 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.5%. AES’s dividend payout ratio is currently 49.30%.

AES 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.