AEP stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
October 18th, 2019
5
American Electric Power Company, Inc., an electric public utility holding company, engages in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity for sale to retail and wholesale customers in the United States.
Should I buy AEP stock?
You can't be a successful trader if you don't follow a methodolgy or system that assist you in choosing companies and the correct market timing. Trading strategies are meant for helping you in the decision process of what stocks to pick and when is the best time to buy them. There are thousands of trading strategies for you to choose, but at Stocks2.com we prefer those that are simple but successful.None of our preferred buy setups matches with American Electric Power stock situation right now, hence this is not a suitable entry point.
| Buy setup | Elegible |
|---|---|
| New all-time high | No |
| New 52 week high | No |
| Price crossing up 200d MA | No |
| 100d MA crossing up 200d MA | No |
Is American Electric Power stock a buy?
Everyday, hundreds of stock ratings are published by financial analysts to indicate a particular stock's attractiveness.
At Stocks2.com, we gathered 15 ratings published for AEP stock in the last 30 days. The general sentiment of these ratings is bullish for AEP stock, with 8 positive ratings.| Date | Analyst / Broker | Previous rating | Current rating |
| 2019-9-25 | Morgan Stanley | n/a | Equal Weight |
| 2019-9-20 | UBS Group | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-9-20 | UBS Group | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-8-16 | Morgan Stanley | n/a | Equal Weight |
| 2019-8-12 | SunTrust Banks | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-7-9 | Bank of America | Buy | Buy |
| 2019-7-12 | UBS Group | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-6-14 | Morgan Stanley | n/a | Equal Weight |
| 2019-6-14 | Morgan Stanley | n/a | Equal Weight |
| 2019-5-9 | UBS Group | Buy | Buy |
| 2019-5-16 | Morgan Stanley | n/a | Equal Weight |
| 2019-4-8 | Goldman Sachs Group | Buy | Neutral |
| 2019-4-26 | Wells Fargo & Co | Outperform | Outperform |
| 2019-4-18 | Morgan Stanley | Overweight | Equal Weight |
| 2019-3-12 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | Neutral | Overweight |
AEP stock analysis
Daily outlook
Shares of American Electric Power stepped up a good 1.23% and closed at $94.14.
American Electric Power shares stepped up 1.23% to $94.14 on October/18. For the last 4 days when AEP stock price broke up the SMA50d line, it gained $2.40 (2.62%). On September 24th, AEP hit a new all time high, pushing higher than on September 23rd tops. Check different trading setups that use ATHs as triggers.
Weekly outlook
American Electric Power shares stepped up 1.95% this week, ending at $94.14.
American Electric Power stock is trading in the range of its last top and last bottom. Loosing would mean breaking the current uptrend. Breakdowns under last bottom are selling point signals for some trading strategies. Not so far away is the last price record American Electric Power marked late September. Early January AEP price bounced up over the SMA of 20 weeks that acted as support stopping new slides.
AEP stock price history
AEP stock historical price chart
AEP stock reached all-time highs on Sep 24th with a price of $94.89.
AEP stock price target is $94.80
Predicting the price evolution of a stock or any financial instrument in a reliable and repeatable way is probably impossible. However, financial institutions invest time and resources to provide the most accurated estimations to help investors to make their decisions. We do not recommend to follow these stock price predictions without a critical thinking from your side, as their accuracy is usually low. For the last 30 days we found 13 price targets for American Electric Power stock:| Date | Analyst / Broker | Action | Previous target | Current target | Diff |
| 2019-9-25 | Morgan Stanley | Raises Target | $91.00 | $97.00 | 6.6% |
| 2019-9-20 | UBS Group | Reiterates | $100.00 | $105.00 | 5% |
| 2019-9-20 | UBS Group | Raises Target | $100.00 | $105.00 | 5% |
| 2019-8-16 | Morgan Stanley | Lowers Target | $93.00 | $91.00 | -2.2% |
| 2019-8-12 | SunTrust Banks | Raises Target | $98.00 | $99.00 | 1% |
| 2019-7-9 | Bank of America | Reiterates | $93.00 | $98.00 | 5.4% |
| 2019-7-12 | UBS Group | Raises Target | $94.00 | $100.00 | 6.4% |
| 2019-6-14 | Morgan Stanley | Reiterates | $88.00 | $92.00 | 4.5% |
| 2019-6-14 | Morgan Stanley | Raises Target | $88.00 | $92.00 | 4.5% |
| 2019-5-9 | UBS Group | Raises Target | $89.00 | $94.00 | 5.6% |
| 2019-5-16 | Morgan Stanley | Raises Target | $87.00 | $88.00 | 1.1% |
| 2019-4-8 | Goldman Sachs Group | Downgrades | n/a | $78.00 | - |
| 2019-4-26 | Wells Fargo & Co | Raises Target | $89.00 | $93.00 | 4.5% |
| (in average) | $92.50 | $94.80 | 2.0% |
Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
After presenting its last earnings report on April, American Electric Power . As soon as we get its actual EPS from the earnings report, we will extend this report.| Quarter | Reporting date | Estimated EPS | Actual EPS | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | - | n/a | 0.76 | n/a |
| 2017-Q3 | 2017-10-26 | 1.16 | 1.1 | -5.2% |
| 2017-Q4 | 2018-01-25 | 0.79 | 0.85 | 7.6% |
| 2018-Q1 | 2018-04-26 | 0.99 | 0.96 | -3.0% |
| 2018-Q2 | 2018-07-25 | 0.88 | 1.01 | 14.8% |
| 2018-Q3 | 2018-10-25 | 1.23 | 1.25 | 1.6% |
| 2018-Q4 | 2019-01-24 | 0.72 | 0.72 | 0.0% |
| 2019-Q1 | 2019-04-24 | 1.04 | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q2 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q3 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Annual financial results
Compared to 2017, last anual turnover report draw a nice gain of 5.00% to $16,195.70 M USD. When comparing 2018 vs 2017, by contrast, profit margin (that is, the net income divided by revenues) remained steady a -0.52% to 11.88%. American Electric Power presents anual results in December, and to evaluate its evolution since then, we estimate annual sales and income figures by adding results from the last 4 quarters. This is called TTM (or Twelve Trailing Months). So, American Electric Power TTM sales up to March 2019 were $16,204.20 and earnings $2,042.20 M dollars. When comparing this TTM figures with the last reported annuality, we can esteem American Electric Power business evolution since December 2018: Annual turnover up to March, compared to lastest yearly report, remained stable a tight 0.05%. Aligned with this, profit margin (net income/sales) stayed stable at 11.88%.| Year | Sales | YoY | Income/(margin) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | $15,290 M | - | $1,480 M9.7% | - |
| 2014 | $17,020 M | 11.31% | $1,634 M9.6% | 10.41% |
| 2015 | $16,453 M | -3.33% | $2,047 M12.4% | 25.28% |
| 2016 | $16,380 M | -0.44% | $611 M3.7% | -70.16% |
| 2017 | $15,425 M | -5.83% | $1,913 M12.4% | 213.08% |
| 2018 | $16,196 M | 5.00% | $1,924 M11.9% | 0.59% |
| TTM | $16,204 M | 0.05% | $2,042 M12.6% | 6.15% |
Quarterly financial results
American Electric Power posted $4,056.80 million in revenues for 2019-Q1, a 6.73% improvement compared to previous quarter. Reported quarter earnings marked $572.80 M with a profit margin of 14.12%. Profit margin grew a 4.56% compared to previous quarter when profit margin was 9.56%. When comparing sales to same quarter last year, American Electric Power sales marked a neutral movement and stayed stable a 0.21%.| Quarter | Sales1 | QoQ2 | Income1/(margin) | QoQ2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | $3,570 M | - | $375 M10.5% | - |
| 2017-Q3 | $4,090 M | 14.57% | $545 M13.3% | 45.25% |
| 2017-Q4 | $3,810 M | -6.84% | $401 M10.5% | -26.44% |
| 2018-Q1 | $4,048 M | 6.24% | $454 M11.2% | 13.40% |
| 2018-Q2 | $4,013 M | -0.87% | $528 M13.2% | 16.29% |
| 2018-Q3 | $4,333 M | 7.97% | $578 M13.3% | 9.31% |
| 2018-Q4 | $3,801 M | -12.28% | $363 M9.6% | -37.08% |
| 2019-Q1 | $4,057 M | 6.73% | $573 M14.1% | 57.62% |
American Electric Power ownership
When you are planning to invest in shares of a company, it's always worth to check its ownership structure.Management staff in all public traded companies that hold equity is required to report every transaction to the SEC. For American Electric Power, 0.02% of all outstanding shares are owned by its staff.
In case of American Electric Power stock, 75.76% of its shares are held by institutions (mutual funds, pension funds, big banks and other large financial institutions). Bearish positions for AEP stock account 0.00%, no big difference from last month.
For a better context understanding, the next table shows ownership data compared to other related stocks:
| AEP | AES | D | DUK | ETR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $46.5 B | $10.9 B | $66.0 B | $69.5 B | $23.5 B |
| Total shares | 493.8 M | 663.9 M | 803.4 M | 728.6 M | 198.8 M |
| Float shares | 493.2 M | 661.1 M | 800.7 M | 727.6 M | 198.1 M |
| - Institutional holdings (%) | 75.8% | 97.4% | 60.2% | 61.7% | 91.2% |
| - Insider holdings (%) | 0.0% | 0.4% | 0.3% | 0.1% | 0.3% |
| Shares in short selling | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
AEP summary
| Friday, October 18th, 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $92.80 |
| Close | $94.14 |
| Day range | $92.67 - $94.28 |
| Previous close | $93.00 |
| Session gain | 1.23% |
| Average true range | $1.11 |
| 50d mov avg | $91.99 |
| 100d mov avg | $90.39 |
| 200d mov avg | $85.42 |
| Daily pattern | |
| Weekly pattern | lt06a |
American Electric Power performance
To better understand American Electric Power performance you must compare its gains with other related stocks in same sector or industry. We picked The AES, Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Entergy, Exelon, NRG Energy, PPL, Southern and Xcel Energy as the bechmarking frame for American Electric Power stock.| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| AEPAmerican Electric... | 5.06% | 15.18% | 32.82% |
| AESThe AES | -4.10% | -6.08% | 13.04% |
| DDominion Energy | 8.16% | 12.27% | 17.17% |
| DUKDuke Energy | 8.96% | 9.28% | 20.25% |
| ETREntergy | 12.85% | 28.72% | 46.01% |
| EXCExelon | -5.34% | -8.18% | 4.34% |
| NRGNRG Energy | 14.35% | -1.91% | 9.40% |
| PPL | 7.66% | 6.27% | 8.25% |
| SOSouthern | 11.81% | 20.33% | 42.25% |
| XELXcel Energy | 6.01% | 18.62% | 34.00% |
American Electric Power competitors
We chose a few stocks to conform a list of American Electric Power competitors to watch if you are interested in investing in AEP:- The AES (AES)
- Dominion Energy (D)
- Duke Energy (DUK)
- Entergy (ETR)
- Exelon (EXC)
- NRG Energy (NRG)
- PPL (PPL)
- Southern (SO)
- Xcel Energy (XEL)
Latest AEP stock news
- InvestorPlace3 Big Stock Charts for Thursday: Unum Group, Emerson Electric and American Electric PowerDecember 6, 2018
- InvestorPlace3 Big Stock Charts for Thursday: CBS, Ford and American Electric PowerNovember 8, 2018