AEP stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
July 16th, 2019
4
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?
Even if you are a experienced or a novel trader, best trading results come from using an investing strategy that never leaves to random or subjective opinions when is the best moment to buy or sell stocks. That's why is so important to choose your own trading strategy that matches with your character as inversor. At Stocks2.com, we like to use very simple but trusted and powerful trend following trading strategies. Simple things usually work the best.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 posted by financial analysts to indicate a particular stock's attractiveness.
At Stocks2.com, we gathered 13 ratings published for AEP stock in the last 30 days. The general sentiment of these ratings is bullish for AEP stock, with 6 positive ratings.| Date | Analyst / Broker | Previous rating | Current rating |
| 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 |
| 2019-2-12 | Morgan Stanley | Overweight | Overweight |
| 2019-1-7 | Guggenheim | Buy | Neutral |
| 2019-1-3 | Mizuho | Buy | Neutral |
AEP stock analysis
Daily outlook
American Electric Power shares declined -0.75% to $90.51 today.
American Electric Power ended today at $90.51 and declined an ugly -0.75%. From a daily perspective, AEP is in a short term uptrend after plotting its last bottom ($88.38, on Jul/5) higher than the previous bottom, and its last top ($91.42, on Thursday) also over the previous top. Now trading in between its last bottom and last top AEP might consolidate in a plain range, waiting to break out over $91.42 or down under $88.38. On Jun 24th, AEP hit a new all time high, pushing higher than on Jun/20 tops. Check different trading setups that use ATHs as triggers. Since last May when AEP stock price broke up the SMA50d line, it gained $7.64 (9.22%).
Weekly outlook
American Electric Power remained steady a slightly good 0.29% this week. With this, it's been 3 green weeks in a row, gaining $2.50 or 2.73%.
Price pattern shows an uptrend with two rising tops and bottoms, and now trading upwards to the $91.99 resistance. Not so far away is the last price record American Electric Power marked late June. Since late August 2018 when SMA20w and SMA40w crossed up, AEP price gained $20.76 per share (29.76%). 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 Jun 24th with a price of $91.99.
AEP stock price target is $91.00
How much a stock will be priced tomorrow or next week is quite unpredictable However, many stock price predictions are published every day by banks, financial institutions and independent analysts. You should not follow the analysts' AEP stock price predictions in the hope that they will be met as they may be wrong and not met. We detected 9 price targets for AEP stock released in the last 30 days:| Date | Analyst / Broker | Action | Previous target | Current target | Diff |
| 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% |
| 2019-2-12 | Morgan Stanley | Raises Target | $81.00 | $84.00 | 3.7% |
| (in average) | $88.60 | $91.00 | 3.0% |
Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
Since April, when American Electric Power presented its last earnings report, it jumped a more than good 9.18%. Unfortunately, reported EPS is not yet available in our database.| 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
In 2018, American Electric Power annual revenues inched a fine 5.00% to $16,195.70 million dollars from $15,424.90 marked in 2017. Instead, its profit margin (compared to revenues) remained constant to 11.88%, that is $1,923.80 million. American Electric Power fiscal year ends 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 income $2,042.20 million dollars. If we compare this TTM figures with the last reported annuality, we can esteem American Electric Power business evolution since December 2018: Annual sales up to March, compared to lastest yearly report, stayed stable a neutral 0.05%. Similarly, profit margin (net income/sales) stayed constant 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 reported $4,056.80 million in sales for 2019-Q1, a 6.73% up compared to previous quarter. Reported quarter income marked $572.80 million 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 worth to have a look its ownership structure.American Electric Power shares owned by insiders (that is, founders, CEO, CTO, main executives or other management staff) currently counts a 0.02% of all shares.
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 companies:
| AEP | AES | D | DUK | ETR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $44.7 B | $11.4 B | $50.5 B | $65.1 B | $19.9 B |
| Total shares | 493.4 M | 662.4 M | 651.6 M | 728.1 M | 189.9 M |
| Float shares | 493.1 M | 661.3 M | 800.2 M | 727.5 M | 189.3 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
| Tuesday, July 16th, 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $90.77 |
| Close | $90.51 |
| Day range | $89.96 - $91.17 |
| Previous close | $91.19 |
| Session gain | -0.75% |
| Average true range | $1.28 |
| 50d mov avg | $88.16 |
| 100d mov avg | $85.37 |
| 200d mov avg | $79.84 |
| Daily pattern | lt06a |
| Weekly pattern | lb02a |
American Electric Power performance
Stocks performance is always measured in comparision to the market or competitors and related stocks in the same industry. For American Electric Power, the benchmark is made against The AES, Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Entergy, Exelon, NRG Energy, PPL, Southern and Xcel Energy.| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| AEPAmerican Electric... | 9.91% | 20.94% | 33.02% |
| AESThe AES | -2.45% | 12.09% | 36.33% |
| DDominion Energy | 4.66% | 15.44% | 13.96% |
| DUKDuke Energy | 1.36% | 6.66% | 15.75% |
| ETREntergy | 13.24% | 23.90% | 35.66% |
| EXCExelon | -1.31% | 6.61% | 18.66% |
| NRGNRG Energy | -13.01% | -11.52% | 11.27% |
| PPL | -0.16% | 4.13% | 14.83% |
| SOSouthern | 8.35% | 20.69% | 23.04% |
| XELXcel Energy | 12.65% | 22.36% | 38.10% |
American Electric Power competitors
One check before trading any stock is to have a look a list of its competitors, in this case for American Electric Power. We picked 9 companies as American Electric Power competitors as they are in the same industry or have similar market objectives.- 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