TransAlta Co. (TSE:TA) Receives Average Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

TransAlta Co. (TSE:TA) (NYSE:TAC) has earned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the six brokerages that are currently covering the stock, Marketbeat reports. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, three have assigned a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month target price among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is C$18.36.

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Cibc World Mkts upgraded TransAlta from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 18th. CIBC upgraded TransAlta from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and decreased their target price for the company from C$23.00 to C$19.50 in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. Desjardins increased their target price on shares of TransAlta from C$15.50 to C$16.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on shares of TransAlta from C$17.00 to C$22.00 in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Scotiabank cut shares of TransAlta from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from C$19.00 to C$21.00 in a research report on Thursday, January 30th.

TransAlta Stock Performance

Shares of TSE:TA opened at C$13.56 on Friday. TransAlta has a 1 year low of C$8.22 and a 1 year high of C$21.22. The stock has a market capitalization of C$4.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.33, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of -0.07 and a beta of 0.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 229.66, a current ratio of 0.74 and a quick ratio of 0.62. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is C$15.22 and its 200 day simple moving average is C$15.70.

Insider Activity at TransAlta

In related news, Senior Officer Joel E. Hunter acquired 45,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 27th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of C$14.99 per share, for a total transaction of C$674,752.50. 0.21% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

About TransAlta

TransAlta is an independent power producer based in Alberta, Canada. The company operates a diverse and growing fleet of electrical power generation assets in Canada, the United States, and Australia consisting of hydro, wind, solar, battery storage, gas and energy transition facilities. The majority of the company’s revenues are derived from the sale of generation capacity, electricity, thermal energy, environmental attributes, and byproducts of power generation.