Fortis (TSE:FTS) Sets New 1-Year High – Here’s What Happened

Fortis Inc. (TSE:FTS) reached a new 52-week high during trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as C$82.67 and last traded at C$82.09, with a volume of 1505144 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at C$82.57.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

FTS has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. TD lifted their price objective on shares of Fortis from C$83.00 to C$84.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, May 7th. Barclays reduced their target price on shares of Fortis from C$84.00 to C$83.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, May 8th. Raymond James Financial raised their price target on shares of Fortis from C$78.50 to C$80.50 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 28th. Finally, National Bank Financial raised their price target on shares of Fortis from C$75.00 to C$82.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Monday, June 1st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have given a Buy rating and four have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of C$79.32.

Fortis Trading Down 0.6%

The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is C$77.90 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is C$75.97. The stock has a market capitalization of C$41.79 billion, a PE ratio of 24.22, a PEG ratio of 3.01 and a beta of 0.43. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 145.23, a current ratio of 0.49 and a quick ratio of 0.36.

Fortis (TSE:FTS) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 6th. The company reported C$0.99 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. The company had revenue of C$3.40 billion during the quarter. Fortis had a net margin of 14.75% and a return on equity of 7.51%. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Fortis Inc. will post 3.3419913 EPS for the current year.

Fortis Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 1st. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 1st were issued a dividend of $0.64 per share. This represents a $2.56 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, May 15th. Fortis’s dividend payout ratio is 74.04%.

Insider Transactions at Fortis

In other Fortis news, insider James Reid sold 421 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, June 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of C$79.05, for a total value of C$33,280.05. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 31,283 shares of the company’s stock, valued at C$2,472,921.15. This trade represents a 1.33% decrease in their ownership of the stock. 0.04% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Fortis Company Profile

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.