The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) Short Interest Down 5.3% in September

The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) saw a large decline in short interest in September. As of September 30th, there was short interest totalling 27,190,000 shares, a decline of 5.3% from the September 15th total of 28,720,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 8,110,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.4 days.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Jefferies Financial Group started coverage on AES in a research report on Wednesday, September 11th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $20.00 target price on the stock. Barclays decreased their price objective on AES from $23.00 to $22.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, July 22nd. Finally, Evercore ISI upgraded shares of AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, AES has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $22.43.

AES Price Performance

AES stock opened at $17.90 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 0.97, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.63. The stock has a market cap of $12.72 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.86 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $17.96 and a 200 day moving average price of $18.36. AES has a 12-month low of $13.35 and a 12-month high of $22.21.

AES (NYSE:AES) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.38 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.36 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $2.94 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.22 billion. AES had a net margin of 6.07% and a return on equity of 32.74%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.21 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that AES will post 1.9 earnings per share for the current year.

AES Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Friday, November 1st will be given a dividend of $0.1725 per share. This represents a $0.69 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.85%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, November 1st. AES’s payout ratio is 95.83%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Rise Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of AES by 92.4% during the second quarter. Rise Advisors LLC now owns 1,499 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 720 shares during the last quarter. Rothschild Investment LLC acquired a new stake in AES in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $28,000. UMB Bank n.a. raised its position in AES by 102.3% in the second quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 1,776 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 898 shares during the period. Riverview Trust Co acquired a new position in AES during the first quarter worth $33,000. Finally, nVerses Capital LLC acquired a new stake in shares of AES in the second quarter valued at $33,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.13% of the company’s stock.

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.