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

Shares of Fortis Inc. (TSE:FTS) have been assigned an average rating of “Reduce” from the nine analysts that are presently covering the firm, Marketbeat.com reports. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation and six have assigned a hold recommendation to the company. The average 12-month target price among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is C$60.33.

FTS has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. UBS Group raised Fortis to a “strong sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 10th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on Fortis from C$59.00 to C$61.00 in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. Bank of America set a C$60.00 target price on shares of Fortis and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 20th. Raymond James downgraded shares of Fortis from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, CIBC increased their target price on shares of Fortis from C$57.00 to C$59.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 1st.

Fortis Price Performance

FTS opened at C$60.72 on Thursday. Fortis has a 12-month low of C$51.02 and a 12-month high of C$62.47. The firm has a market cap of C$30.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.03, a PEG ratio of 3.01 and a beta of 0.23. The company has a current ratio of 0.69, a quick ratio of 0.36 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 128.59. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is C$60.62 and its 200 day moving average price is C$57.08.

Fortis Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Sunday, December 1st. Investors of record on Sunday, December 1st will be given a dividend of $0.83 per share. This represents a $3.32 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.47%. This is an increase from Fortis’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.59. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, November 18th. Fortis’s dividend payout ratio is 77.12%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Senior Officer James Reid sold 19,972 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, August 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of C$59.46, for a total value of C$1,187,493.18. 0.04% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Fortis Company Profile

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.