Fortis (TSE:FTS) Hits New 52-Week High – Should You Buy?

Fortis Inc. (TSE:FTS)’s share price hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as C$80.79 and last traded at C$80.77, with a volume of 103112 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at C$80.22.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

FTS has been the subject of several research analyst reports. National Bank Financial lifted their target price on shares of Fortis from C$75.00 to C$82.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Monday, June 1st. Barclays reduced their price objective on Fortis from C$84.00 to C$83.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, May 8th. Raymond James Financial increased their price objective on Fortis from C$78.50 to C$80.50 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 28th. Finally, TD increased their price objective on Fortis from C$83.00 to C$84.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 7th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have assigned a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of C$79.32.

Fortis Stock Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 145.23, a quick ratio of 0.36 and a current ratio of 0.49. The business has a 50 day moving average price of C$77.56 and a two-hundred day moving average price of C$75.35. The company has a market cap of C$41.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.80, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.01 and a beta of 0.43.

Fortis (TSE:FTS) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, May 6th. The company reported C$0.99 earnings per share for the quarter. Fortis had a return on equity of 7.51% and a net margin of 14.75%.The company had revenue of C$3.40 billion during the quarter. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Fortis Inc. will post 3.3419913 earnings per share for the current year.

Fortis Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 1st. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 1st were paid a $0.64 dividend. This represents a $2.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.2%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, May 15th. Fortis’s payout ratio is 74.04%.

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.