12,484 Shares in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) Acquired by First Trust Direct Indexing L.P.

First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. bought a new stake in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor bought 12,484 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $240,000.

Several other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of AES. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in shares of AES by 38.6% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 36,821,650 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $559,689,000 after buying an additional 10,256,781 shares during the period. Electron Capital Partners LLC boosted its holdings in AES by 9.3% during the third quarter. Electron Capital Partners LLC now owns 8,060,064 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $122,513,000 after purchasing an additional 686,719 shares during the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. boosted its holdings in AES by 24.2% during the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 7,611,339 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $115,692,000 after purchasing an additional 1,484,052 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp boosted its holdings in AES by 0.5% during the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 6,108,260 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $92,846,000 after purchasing an additional 29,488 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in AES by 2.5% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 5,728,296 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $87,070,000 after acquiring an additional 140,149 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 93.13% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have commented on AES shares. Argus reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $25.00 price target on shares of AES in a research note on Tuesday, March 26th. UBS Group cut their target price on shares of AES from $20.00 to $19.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, April 3rd. Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $25.00 price target on shares of AES in a report on Monday, March 25th. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $22.00 target price on shares of AES in a research report on Tuesday, April 9th. Finally, Barclays reduced their price target on AES from $21.00 to $20.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, March 14th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $22.13.

AES Price Performance

AES stock opened at $18.82 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.71, a current ratio of 0.78 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.04. The firm has a market cap of $13.37 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.14 and a beta of 1.08. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $16.87 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $17.09. The AES Co. has a 12 month low of $11.43 and a 12 month high of $23.07.

AES (NYSE:AES) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, May 3rd. The utilities provider reported $0.50 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.34 by $0.16. AES had a return on equity of 36.23% and a net margin of 4.40%. The business had revenue of $3.09 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.20 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.22 EPS. AES’s revenue for the quarter was down 4.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts anticipate that The AES Co. will post 1.91 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

AES Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, May 1st will be paid a dividend of $0.1725 per share. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, April 30th. This represents a $0.69 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.67%. AES’s payout ratio is presently 95.83%.

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.