Fortis (TSE:FTS) Price Target Raised to C$61.00

Fortis (TSE:FTS) had its target price upped by BMO Capital Markets from C$59.00 to C$61.00 in a research note released on Thursday morning, BayStreet.CA reports.

Several other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports on FTS. Raymond James raised their target price on Fortis from C$59.00 to C$61.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, August 1st. CIBC boosted their price objective on shares of Fortis from C$57.00 to C$59.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a report on Thursday, August 1st. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of Fortis from C$56.00 to C$59.00 in a research report on Wednesday, May 8th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of Fortis from C$52.00 to C$53.00 in a research report on Thursday, July 25th. Finally, Scotiabank upped their price objective on shares of Fortis from C$56.00 to C$63.00 and gave the stock a sector perform rating in a report on Tuesday, August 20th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Fortis presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of C$59.10.

Fortis Trading Down 1.0 %

FTS opened at C$60.52 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of C$29.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.97, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.80 and a beta of 0.22. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is C$57.36 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is C$55.01. Fortis has a 1-year low of C$49.82 and a 1-year high of C$61.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 128.59, a current ratio of 0.69 and a quick ratio of 0.36.

Fortis (TSE:FTS) last released its quarterly earnings data 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 return on equity of 7.44% and a net margin of 14.35%. The company had revenue of C$2.67 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of C$2.71 billion. Analysts expect that Fortis will post 3.2439825 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Fortis Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Sunday, September 1st. Shareholders 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 3.90%. Fortis’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 73.98%.

Insider Transactions at Fortis

In related news, Senior Officer James Reid sold 19,972 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of C$59.46, for a total transaction of C$1,187,493.18. Corporate insiders own 0.04% of the company’s stock.

About Fortis

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.