Fortis Inc. (TSE:FTS) Receives Average Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

Fortis Inc. (TSE:FTS) has been given an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by the nine research firms that are covering the stock, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, three have assigned a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 12-month price target among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is C$74.85.

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on FTS. CIBC increased their price target on shares of Fortis from C$75.00 to C$76.00 in a report on Wednesday, December 17th. National Bankshares increased their target price on shares of Fortis from C$68.00 to C$72.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 17th. TD Securities raised their target price on Fortis from C$77.00 to C$79.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 5th. Desjardins upped their price target on Fortis from C$76.00 to C$79.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 22nd. Finally, Raymond James Financial increased their price target on Fortis from C$72.00 to C$75.50 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, October 24th.

Fortis Stock Up 0.1%

Fortis stock opened at C$72.19 on Friday. The business’s 50-day moving average price is C$71.51 and its 200 day moving average price is C$70.01. The company has a quick ratio of 0.36, a current ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 142.31. The firm has a market cap of C$36.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.01 and a beta of 0.31. Fortis has a 52 week low of C$60.48 and a 52 week high of C$74.00.

Fortis (TSE:FTS) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November 4th. The company reported C$0.87 EPS for the quarter. The business had revenue of C$2.94 billion for the quarter. Fortis had a return on equity of 7.48% and a net margin of 14.53%. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Fortis will post 3.3419913 earnings per share for the current year.

Fortis Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 1st. Investors of record on Monday, December 1st were paid a $0.64 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, November 17th. This represents a $2.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.5%. This is an increase from Fortis’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.62. Fortis’s dividend payout ratio is 73.21%.

About Fortis

Fortis owns and operates 10 utility transmission and distribution assets in Canada and the United States, serving more than 3.4 million electricity and gas customers. The company has smaller stakes in electricity generation and several Caribbean utilities. ITC operates electric transmission in seven U.S. states, with more than 16,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines in operation serving a peak load in excess of 23 gigawatts.