The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) Declares $0.17 Quarterly Dividend

The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, October 11th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 1st will be given a dividend of 0.1725 per share by the utilities provider on Friday, November 15th. This represents a $0.69 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.98%.

AES has raised its dividend by an average of 5.0% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 11 consecutive years. AES has a payout ratio of 33.2% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect AES to earn $2.05 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.69 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 33.7%.

AES Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:AES traded down $0.01 during trading on Friday, hitting $17.32. 7,072,920 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 8,137,268. The company has a quick ratio of 0.91, a current ratio of 0.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.63. AES has a 1-year low of $12.87 and a 1-year high of $22.21. The company has a market capitalization of $12.31 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.51 and a beta of 1.07. The business’s 50 day moving average is $17.88 and its 200-day moving average is $18.34.

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

AES has been the subject of several analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group started coverage on shares of AES in a report on Wednesday, September 11th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $20.00 price objective for the company. Barclays lowered their price objective on shares of AES from $23.00 to $22.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note 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 investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong 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 $21.50.

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.