Weaver Capital Management LLC Sells 1,719 Shares of Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS)

Weaver Capital Management LLC trimmed its holdings in shares of Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS) by 23.7% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 5,529 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 1,719 shares during the quarter. Weaver Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Fortis were worth $230,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of FTS. Versant Capital Management Inc increased its position in shares of Fortis by 34.1% during the 4th quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 1,006 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $42,000 after purchasing an additional 256 shares during the last quarter. JCIC Asset Management Inc. grew its position in Fortis by 5.5% during the fourth quarter. JCIC Asset Management Inc. now owns 5,087 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $211,000 after buying an additional 267 shares during the period. Code Waechter LLC increased its holdings in Fortis by 1.5% during the fourth quarter. Code Waechter LLC now owns 18,708 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $778,000 after buying an additional 277 shares during the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. boosted its stake in Fortis by 724.3% in the fourth quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 577 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 507 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Janney Montgomery Scott LLC grew its position in shares of Fortis by 3.1% during the 4th quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 17,887 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $744,000 after acquiring an additional 531 shares during the period. 57.77% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Raymond James cut shares of Fortis from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 6th.

Fortis Stock Up 1.8 %

FTS stock opened at $43.55 on Thursday. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $42.45 and a 200-day moving average of $43.37. Fortis Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $36.86 and a fifty-two week high of $46.06. The company has a market capitalization of $21.74 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.30, a PEG ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 0.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32, a quick ratio of 0.63 and a current ratio of 0.74.

Fortis (NYSE:FTS) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, November 5th. The utilities provider reported $0.85 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.59 by $0.26. Fortis had a net margin of 14.06% and a return on equity of 7.01%. The firm had revenue of $2.03 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.01 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.63 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Fortis Inc. will post 2.27 earnings per share for the current year.

Fortis Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Saturday, March 1st. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 18th will be issued a $0.4382 dividend. This represents a $1.75 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.03%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 18th. Fortis’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 79.41%.

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.