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

Fortis Inc. (TSE:FTS) has received a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the eight analysts that are presently covering the stock, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, three have issued a buy recommendation and one has given a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year price objective among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is C$75.65.

A number of equities analysts recently commented on the company. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce lifted their price target on Fortis from C$75.00 to C$76.00 in a report on Wednesday, December 17th. National Bank Financial raised their price objective on Fortis from C$68.00 to C$72.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 17th. TD Securities boosted their target price on Fortis from C$77.00 to C$79.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 5th. Raymond James Financial raised their price target on Fortis from C$75.50 to C$78.50 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, February 13th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada lifted their price objective on shares of Fortis from C$79.00 to C$80.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Friday, February 13th.

Fortis Price Performance

Shares of FTS opened at C$77.71 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 0.36 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 142.31. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is C$72.19 and its 200 day simple moving average is C$71.07. Fortis has a 1-year low of C$60.94 and a 1-year high of C$78.07. The company has a market cap of C$39.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.86, a PEG ratio of 3.01 and a beta of 0.35.

Fortis (TSE:FTS) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 12th. The company reported C$0.90 EPS for the quarter. The company had revenue of C$3.08 billion during the quarter. Fortis had a net margin of 14.53% and a return on equity of 7.48%. On average, research analysts forecast that Fortis will post 3.3419913 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Fortis Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Sunday, March 1st. Investors of record on Sunday, March 1st will be paid a $0.64 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 17th. This represents a $2.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.3%. Fortis’s dividend payout ratio is 73.09%.

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.