Fortis (TSE:FTS) Given New C$65.00 Price Target at Royal Bank of Canada

Fortis (TSE:FTS) had its price target boosted by Royal Bank of Canada from C$62.00 to C$65.00 in a research report sent to investors on Thursday morning, BayStreet.CA reports. The firm currently has a sector perform rating on the stock.

FTS has been the topic of several other reports. Bank of America set a C$60.00 target price on shares of Fortis and gave the stock an underperform rating in a report on Friday, September 20th. Scotiabank raised their price target on shares of Fortis from C$56.00 to C$63.00 and gave the stock a sector perform rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 20th. National Bankshares raised their target price on shares of Fortis from C$56.00 to C$62.00 and gave the company a sector perform rating in a research note on Friday, August 23rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of Fortis from C$52.00 to C$53.00 in a research note on Thursday, July 25th. Finally, CIBC raised their target price on shares of Fortis from C$57.00 to C$59.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research note on Thursday, August 1st. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of C$60.40.

Fortis Stock Performance

Shares of TSE:FTS opened at C$60.33 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of C$29.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.08, a P/E/G ratio of 2.80 and a beta of 0.23. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is C$59.89 and its 200 day simple moving average is C$56.04. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 128.59, a current ratio of 0.69 and a quick ratio of 0.36. Fortis has a fifty-two week low of C$51.02 and a fifty-two week high of C$62.29.

Fortis (TSE:FTS) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The company reported C$0.67 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of C$0.65 by C$0.02. The business had revenue of C$2.67 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of C$2.71 billion. Fortis had a net margin of 14.35% and a return on equity of 7.44%. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Fortis will post 3.29329 earnings per share for the current year.

Fortis Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Sunday, December 1st. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 18th will be issued a dividend of $0.83 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, November 18th. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.50%. This is an increase from Fortis’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.59. Fortis’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 77.12%.

Insider Transactions at Fortis

In related news, Senior Officer James Reid sold 19,972 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of C$59.46, for a total value 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.