Fortis (TSE:FTS) Hits New 1-Year High at $61.56

Fortis Inc. (TSE:FTS)’s share price reached a new 52-week high on Thursday . The company traded as high as C$61.56 and last traded at C$61.34, with a volume of 1471617 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at C$60.75.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on FTS shares. Scotiabank upped their price objective on Fortis from C$56.00 to C$63.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 20th. UBS Group upgraded shares of Fortis to a “strong sell” rating in a report on Tuesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of Fortis from C$52.00 to C$53.00 in a research note on Thursday, July 25th. CIBC raised their price objective on Fortis from C$57.00 to C$59.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 1st. Finally, Raymond James boosted their target price on Fortis from C$59.00 to C$61.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, August 1st. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of C$59.10.

Fortis Stock Up 0.8 %

The stock has a fifty day moving average price of C$58.14 and a 200-day moving average price of C$55.27. The firm has a market cap of C$30.62 billion, a PE ratio of 19.39, a PEG ratio of 2.80 and a beta of 0.22. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 128.59, a quick ratio of 0.36 and a current ratio of 0.69.

Fortis (TSE:FTS) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The company reported C$0.67 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of C$0.65 by C$0.02. Fortis had a net margin of 14.35% and a return on equity of 7.44%. The firm had revenue of C$2.67 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of C$2.71 billion. Research analysts expect that Fortis Inc. will post 3.3416115 EPS for the current year.

Fortis Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Sunday, September 1st. Stockholders of record on Sunday, September 1st were paid a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, August 20th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.82%. Fortis’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 73.98%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Fortis

In other Fortis news, Senior Officer James Reid sold 19,972 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of C$59.46, for a total value of C$1,187,493.18. 0.04% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.