Fortis Inc. (TSE:FTS) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Hold” from Brokerages

Fortis Inc. (TSE:FTS) has received an average recommendation of “Hold” from the eight brokerages that are covering the company, Marketbeat Ratings reports. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 1-year target price among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is C$57.38.

A number of research firms recently weighed in on FTS. Raymond James dropped their price target on Fortis from C$62.00 to C$59.00 in a research note on Thursday, April 25th. CIBC upped their target price on Fortis from C$56.00 to C$57.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 2nd. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on shares of Fortis from C$58.00 to C$58.50 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 2nd. Scotiabank lowered their price objective on shares of Fortis from C$60.00 to C$56.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, April 22nd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of Fortis from C$56.00 to C$59.00 in a research note on Wednesday, May 8th.

Fortis Stock Performance

Shares of FTS stock opened at C$53.53 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day moving average of C$54.33 and a 200-day moving average of C$53.84. The company has a market cap of C$26.39 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.80 and a beta of 0.18. The company has a quick ratio of 0.36, a current ratio of 0.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 128.89. Fortis has a 52 week low of C$49.82 and a 52 week high of C$57.93.

Fortis (TSE:FTS) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 1st. The company reported C$0.93 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of C$0.89 by C$0.04. Fortis had a net margin of 14.11% and a return on equity of 7.38%. The business had revenue of C$3.12 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of C$3.34 billion. On average, equities analysts forecast that Fortis will post 3.2075145 earnings per share for the current year.

Fortis Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Saturday, June 1st. Investors of record on Saturday, June 1st were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.41%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, May 16th. Fortis’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 75.40%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Fortis

In other Fortis news, Senior Officer James Reid bought 700 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, June 19th. The shares were purchased at an average price of C$52.37 per share, for a total transaction of C$36,659.00. Company insiders own 0.04% of the company’s stock.

Fortis Company Profile

Fortis Inc operates as an electric and gas utility company in Canada, the United States, and the Caribbean countries. It generates, transmits, and distributes electricity to approximately 447,000 retail customers in southeastern Arizona; and 103,000 retail customers in Arizona's Mohave and Santa Cruz counties with an aggregate capacity of 3,408 megawatts (MW), including 68 MW of solar capacity and 250 MV of wind capacity.