Fortis Inc. (TSE:FTS) Given Average Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by Brokerages

Shares of Fortis Inc. (TSE:FTS) have received an average rating of “Moderate Buy” from the nine ratings firms that are presently covering the stock, MarketBeat.com reports. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, three have assigned a buy recommendation and one has given a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price objective among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is C$74.65.

Several research firms have recently weighed in on FTS. TD Securities boosted their target price on Fortis from C$77.00 to C$79.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 5th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on Fortis from C$72.00 to C$74.00 in a research note on Wednesday, November 5th. Raymond James Financial increased their price objective on Fortis from C$72.00 to C$75.50 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, October 24th. National Bankshares lifted their target price on shares of Fortis from C$68.00 to C$72.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 17th. Finally, Scotiabank upped their price target on shares of Fortis from C$74.00 to C$79.00 in a research report on Tuesday, December 16th.

Fortis Trading Down 0.8%

Shares of Fortis stock opened at C$72.32 on Friday. 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 has a fifty day simple moving average of C$71.50 and a 200-day simple moving average of C$70.23. The stock has a market cap of C$36.28 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.52, a PEG ratio of 3.01 and a beta of 0.31. Fortis has a 12-month low of C$60.50 and a 12-month high of C$74.00.

Fortis (TSE:FTS) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, November 4th. The company reported C$0.87 earnings per share for the quarter. Fortis had a net margin of 14.53% and a return on equity of 7.48%. The firm had revenue of C$2.94 billion during the quarter. On average, equities analysts forecast that Fortis will post 3.3419913 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Fortis Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 1st. Investors of record on Monday, December 1st were issued a dividend of $0.64 per share. This is an increase from Fortis’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.62. This represents a $2.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.5%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, November 17th. Fortis’s dividend payout ratio is 73.21%.

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.