Marathon Trading Investment Management LLC Takes Position in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

Marathon Trading Investment Management LLC bought a new position in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund bought 92,698 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,193,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Millburn Ridgefield Corp purchased a new stake in shares of AES in the 3rd quarter valued at $28,000. SRS Capital Advisors Inc. lifted its stake 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 purchasing an additional 1,581 shares during the last quarter. WR Wealth Planners LLC boosted its position in AES by 93.3% during the fourth quarter. WR Wealth Planners LLC now owns 2,837 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $37,000 after buying an additional 1,369 shares during the period. Brooklyn Investment Group bought a new position in shares of AES during the third quarter valued at about $63,000. Finally, AlphaQuest LLC increased its holdings in shares of AES by 18,047.1% in the fourth quarter. AlphaQuest LLC now owns 6,170 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $79,000 after buying an additional 6,136 shares during the period. 93.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

AES has been the topic of several recent research reports. Barclays reduced their price target on AES from $17.00 to $12.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, January 27th. Seaport Res Ptn downgraded shares of AES from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Monday, March 3rd. Mizuho dropped their price target on shares of AES from $16.00 to $15.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, March 4th. Hsbc Global Res upgraded shares of AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, Susquehanna dropped their target price on shares of AES from $16.00 to $15.00 and set a “positive” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, March 5th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $18.30.

AES Stock Performance

AES stock opened at $11.79 on Tuesday. The AES Co. has a fifty-two week low of $9.88 and a fifty-two week high of $22.21. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $11.32 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $14.29. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.21, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a current ratio of 0.85. The stock has a market cap of $8.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.18, a PEG ratio of 0.82 and a beta of 0.94.

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

AES Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 1st will be issued a $0.176 dividend. This represents a $0.70 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.97%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 1st. AES’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 29.54%.

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.