Fortis (NYSE:FTS) Releases Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Estimates By $0.26 EPS

Fortis (NYSE:FTS) released its earnings results on Tuesday. The utilities provider reported $0.85 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.59 by $0.26, Briefing.com reports. Fortis had a net margin of 13.90% and a return on equity of 7.04%. The company had revenue of $2.03 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.01 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.63 EPS.

Fortis Trading Up 0.6 %

Shares of FTS stock opened at $43.86 on Friday. Fortis has a 1-year low of $36.86 and a 1-year high of $46.06. The company has a market cap of $21.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.58, a PEG ratio of 3.87 and a beta of 0.47. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.26, a current ratio of 0.69 and a quick ratio of 0.58. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $44.45 and a 200-day simple moving average of $41.92.

Fortis Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Sunday, December 1st. Investors of record on Monday, November 18th will be issued a $0.615 dividend. This is a boost from Fortis’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.43. The ex-dividend date is Monday, November 18th. This represents a $2.46 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.61%. Fortis’s dividend payout ratio is presently 72.46%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Bank of America started coverage on shares of Fortis in a report on Friday, September 20th. They set an “underperform” rating on the stock. UBS Group raised Fortis to a “strong sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 10th. Raymond James downgraded shares of Fortis from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of Fortis from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Sunday, August 4th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and two have given a hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Fortis presently has an average rating of “Reduce”.

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.