Raymond James & Associates Purchases 3,879 Shares of ALLETE, Inc. (NYSE:ALE)

Raymond James & Associates raised its position in shares of ALLETE, Inc. (NYSE:ALE) by 13.6% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 32,400 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 3,879 shares during the period. Raymond James & Associates owned approximately 0.06% of ALLETE worth $1,982,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. BlackRock Inc. grew its holdings in ALLETE by 0.4% in the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 7,283,418 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $468,834,000 after buying an additional 28,466 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in ALLETE by 2.1% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 6,402,795 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $338,068,000 after purchasing an additional 130,113 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its holdings in shares of ALLETE by 2.3% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,406,122 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $120,426,000 after purchasing an additional 54,121 shares during the period. First Trust Advisors LP lifted its stake in shares of ALLETE by 0.6% in the first quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 1,308,097 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $84,202,000 after buying an additional 7,986 shares during the period. Finally, FMR LLC grew its position in ALLETE by 0.5% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,254,365 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $66,230,000 after buying an additional 6,421 shares in the last quarter. 76.55% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have commented on ALE. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on ALLETE from $57.00 to $59.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 21st. Sidoti cut ALLETE from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $64.00 target price for the company. in a research report on Wednesday, January 10th. Finally, Guggenheim raised shares of ALLETE from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $58.00 price target on the stock in a report on Monday, January 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and five have assigned a hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $58.60.

ALLETE Price Performance

ALLETE stock opened at $57.46 on Wednesday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $58.16 and a 200 day simple moving average of $57.67. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49, a current ratio of 1.24 and a quick ratio of 0.78. The company has a market capitalization of $3.31 billion, a PE ratio of 13.36 and a beta of 0.75. ALLETE, Inc. has a one year low of $49.29 and a one year high of $65.10.

ALLETE (NYSE:ALE) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported $0.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.97 by ($0.08). ALLETE had a net margin of 13.15% and a return on equity of 7.31%. The company had revenue of $402.70 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $425.21 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.90 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was down 5.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that ALLETE, Inc. will post 3.75 EPS for the current fiscal year.

ALLETE Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 15th were issued a $0.705 dividend. This is an increase from ALLETE’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.68. This represents a $2.82 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.91%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, February 14th. ALLETE’s payout ratio is presently 65.58%.

ALLETE Profile

ALLETE, Inc operates as an energy company. The company operates through Regulated Operations, ALLETE Clean Energy, and Corporate and Other segments. It generates electricity from coal-fired, biomass co-fired / natural gas, hydroelectric, wind, and solar. In addition, the company provides regulated utility electric services in northwestern Wisconsin to approximately 15,000 electric customers, 13,000 natural gas customers, and 10,000 water customers, as well as regulated utility electric services in northeastern Minnesota to approximately 150,000 retail customers and 14 non-affiliated municipal customers.