American Electric Power (AEP) Rating Increased to Overweight at Morgan Stanley

American Electric Power (NYSE:AEP) was upgraded by investment analysts at Morgan Stanley from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating in a report released on Wednesday, Marketbeat.com reports. The brokerage currently has a $83.00 price target on the utilities provider’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s target price suggests a potential upside of 8.48% from the stock’s current price.

A number of other analysts also recently commented on AEP. BidaskClub upgraded American Electric Power from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 22nd. KeyCorp reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $73.00 target price on shares of American Electric Power in a research report on Friday, September 1st. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated a “hold” rating and set a $71.00 target price on shares of American Electric Power in a research report on Monday, September 4th. Mizuho downgraded American Electric Power from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $74.00 to $73.00 in a research report on Friday, September 22nd. Finally, Jefferies Group restated a “hold” rating and issued a $73.00 price objective on shares of American Electric Power in a research report on Tuesday, October 3rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the stock. The stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $74.82.

American Electric Power (NYSE AEP) traded up $0.49 on Wednesday, reaching $76.51. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 2,301,443 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,305,384. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.01, a quick ratio of 0.43 and a current ratio of 0.56. The stock has a market capitalization of $37,630.00, a P/E ratio of 22.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.49 and a beta of 0.30. American Electric Power has a one year low of $61.03 and a one year high of $78.07.

American Electric Power (NYSE:AEP) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, October 26th. The utilities provider reported $1.10 EPS for the quarter, missing the Zacks’ consensus estimate of $1.16 by ($0.06). The firm had revenue of $4.10 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $4.42 billion. American Electric Power had a return on equity of 9.67% and a net margin of 12.21%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 12.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.30 earnings per share. equities analysts anticipate that American Electric Power will post 3.61 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of American Electric Power by 2.5% in the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 34,987,758 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $2,430,599,000 after acquiring an additional 859,169 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors lifted its position in American Electric Power by 223.4% during the second quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 10,110,731 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $702,392,000 after buying an additional 6,983,864 shares during the period. Wells Fargo & Company MN lifted its position in American Electric Power by 29.1% during the third quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 10,029,371 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $704,464,000 after buying an additional 2,260,303 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its position in American Electric Power by 70.2% during the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 6,696,615 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $472,110,000 after buying an additional 2,762,164 shares during the period. Finally, Alliancebernstein L.P. lifted its position in American Electric Power by 3.7% during the second quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 6,350,925 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $441,199,000 after buying an additional 224,199 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.16% of the company’s stock.

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About American Electric Power

American Electric Power Company, Inc (AEP) is a public utility holding company that owns, directly or indirectly, all of the outstanding common stock of its public utility subsidiaries and varying percentages of other subsidiaries. The service areas of the Company’s public utility subsidiaries cover the states of Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.

Analyst Recommendations for American Electric Power (NYSE:AEP)