Sterling Capital Management LLC Has $541,000 Stock Holdings in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

Sterling Capital Management LLC lowered its position in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 4.4% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 42,031 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 1,926 shares during the quarter. Sterling Capital Management LLC’s holdings in AES were worth $541,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. SRS Capital Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in AES by 190.3% in the fourth quarter. SRS Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 2,412 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $31,000 after buying an additional 1,581 shares during the last quarter. WR Wealth Planners LLC grew its position in AES by 93.3% in the fourth quarter. WR Wealth Planners LLC now owns 2,837 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $37,000 after acquiring an additional 1,369 shares in the last quarter. Covestor Ltd increased its stake in shares of AES by 601.5% during the 4th quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 5,745 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $74,000 after purchasing an additional 4,926 shares during the last quarter. AlphaQuest LLC lifted its stake in shares of AES by 18,047.1% in the 4th quarter. AlphaQuest LLC now owns 6,170 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $79,000 after purchasing an additional 6,136 shares during the last quarter. Finally, EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in AES by 95.8% in the fourth quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 6,295 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $81,000 after purchasing an additional 3,080 shares in the last quarter. 93.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have weighed in on the company. Barclays reduced their price target on AES from $17.00 to $12.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, January 27th. Seaport Res Ptn cut AES from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Monday, March 3rd. Jefferies Financial Group reissued a “hold” rating and issued a $10.00 price target (down previously from $15.00) on shares of AES in a research report on Thursday, April 10th. Mizuho lowered their target price on shares of AES from $16.00 to $15.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, March 4th. Finally, Bank of America raised shares of AES from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $11.00 to $13.00 in a research report on Tuesday, March 4th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating, four have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $13.67.

AES Price Performance

Shares of AES stock opened at $10.17 on Friday. 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 company has a market cap of $7.24 billion, a PE ratio of 7.06, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.82 and a beta of 0.81. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $11.30 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $13.00. The AES Co. has a fifty-two week low of $9.86 and a fifty-two week high of $22.21.

AES (NYSE:AES) last released its earnings results on Friday, February 28th. The utilities provider reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.34 by $0.20. The business had revenue of $2.96 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.07 billion. AES had a return on equity of 27.30% and a net margin of 8.34%. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.73 earnings per share. Analysts expect that The AES Co. will post 1.93 EPS for the current year.

AES Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 1st will be given a $0.176 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 1st. This represents a $0.70 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.92%. AES’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 29.54%.

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.