Avista (NYSE:AVA) Issues FY24 Earnings Guidance

Avista (NYSE:AVA) issued an update on its FY24 earnings guidance on Wednesday morning. The company provided earnings per share guidance of $2.36-2.56 for the period, compared to the consensus earnings per share estimate of $2.41. Avista also updated its FY 2024 guidance to 2.360-2.560 EPS.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. StockNews.com raised Avista from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research note on Saturday, February 24th. Guggenheim raised Avista from a sell rating to a neutral rating and set a $34.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Monday, January 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and three have assigned a hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Avista presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $33.50.

Avista Stock Performance

AVA stock opened at $35.98 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.65, a current ratio of 0.85 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.03. Avista has a twelve month low of $30.53 and a twelve month high of $44.76. The business’s fifty day moving average is $34.30 and its 200-day moving average is $34.29. The company has a market cap of $2.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.13 and a beta of 0.50.

Avista (NYSE:AVA) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 21st. The utilities provider reported $1.08 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.14 by ($0.06). The company had revenue of $504.40 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $545.78 million. Avista had a net margin of 9.77% and a return on equity of 7.07%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 1.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.05 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Avista will post 2.46 EPS for the current year.

Avista Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 15th. Investors of record on Friday, February 23rd were given a $0.475 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 22nd. This represents a $1.90 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.28%. This is an increase from Avista’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.46. Avista’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 85.20%.

About Avista

Avista Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an electric and natural gas utility company. It operates in two segments, Avista Utilities and AEL&P. The Avista Utilities segment provides electric distribution and transmission, and natural gas distribution services in parts of eastern Washington and northern Idaho; and natural gas distribution services in parts of northeastern and southwestern Oregon, as well as generates electricity in Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and Montana.