AltaGas Ltd. (TSE:ALA) Given Consensus Rating of “Moderate Buy” by Analysts

AltaGas Ltd. (TSE:ALA) has been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the nine research firms that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold recommendation and eight have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month price target among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is C$39.11.

ALA has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Scotiabank increased their price target on shares of AltaGas from C$40.00 to C$42.00 in a research report on Monday, March 10th. CIBC increased their target price on AltaGas from C$40.00 to C$42.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th.

Insider Transactions at AltaGas

In related news, Senior Officer Donald Mark Jenkins sold 12,352 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, January 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of C$33.90, for a total value of C$418,732.80. Also, Director Peter James Ledig sold 25,200 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of C$38.35, for a total transaction of C$966,420.00. Insiders sold 181,616 shares of company stock valued at $6,859,585 in the last ninety days. 0.58% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

AltaGas Stock Performance

Shares of TSE:ALA opened at C$38.03 on Monday. The company has a market capitalization of C$11.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.04, a P/E/G ratio of -4.97 and a beta of 1.23. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is C$34.96 and its 200 day simple moving average is C$34.26. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 135.26, a current ratio of 1.03 and a quick ratio of 0.44. AltaGas has a fifty-two week low of C$28.76 and a fifty-two week high of C$38.61.

AltaGas (TSE:ALA) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, March 7th. The company reported C$0.76 earnings per share for the quarter. AltaGas had a net margin of 4.04% and a return on equity of 6.36%. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that AltaGas will post 2.3006093 earnings per share for the current year.

AltaGas Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 31st. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 31st will be paid a dividend of $0.315 per share. This is a boost from AltaGas’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.30. This represents a $1.26 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.31%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 17th. AltaGas’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 68.98%.

About AltaGas

AltaGas Ltd owns and operates a diversified basket of energy infrastructure businesses. Business is conducted through four segments: Midstream, power, utilities and corporate. Utility business owns and operates rate-regulated natural gas distribution assets across North America. Midstream business subsequent to the sale of non-core midstream assets in Canada and also engaged in the natural gas liquid processing and extraction, transportation, and storage.