Fortis (TSE:FTS) Stock Price Crosses Above 200-Day Moving Average – Here’s Why

Fortis Inc. (TSE:FTS) shares passed above its two hundred day moving average during trading on Monday . The stock has a two hundred day moving average of C$56.25 and traded as high as C$59.83. Fortis shares last traded at C$59.74, with a volume of 1,079,253 shares traded.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Scotiabank raised their price objective on Fortis from C$56.00 to C$63.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 20th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on Fortis from C$59.00 to C$61.00 in a research report on Thursday, September 5th. Bank of America set a C$60.00 price objective on shares of Fortis and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 20th. National Bankshares raised their target price on shares of Fortis from C$56.00 to C$62.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, August 23rd. Finally, UBS Group upgraded shares of Fortis to a “strong sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 10th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Fortis currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of C$60.40.

Fortis Trading Up 0.7 %

The stock’s 50-day moving average price is C$60.22 and its 200 day moving average price is C$56.37. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 128.59, a current ratio of 0.69 and a quick ratio of 0.36. The firm has a market capitalization of C$30.55 billion, a PE ratio of 19.34, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.80 and a beta of 0.23.

Fortis (TSE:FTS) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 31st. The company reported C$0.67 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 the consensus estimate of C$2.71 billion. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Fortis Inc. will post 3.29329 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Fortis Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Sunday, December 1st. Investors of record on Monday, November 18th will be paid a $0.83 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, November 18th. This is a positive change from Fortis’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.59. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.38%. Fortis’s dividend payout ratio is 77.12%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Fortis

In other Fortis news, Senior Officer James Reid sold 19,972 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of C$59.46, for a total transaction of C$1,187,493.18. 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.