Fortis $FTS Shares Sold by Hsbc Holdings PLC

Hsbc Holdings PLC cut its stake in Fortis (NYSE:FTS) by 39.1% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 322,658 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 206,901 shares during the period. Hsbc Holdings PLC owned approximately 0.06% of Fortis worth $14,696,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Cetera Investment Advisers lifted its position in Fortis by 8.1% in the fourth quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 18,584 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $773,000 after purchasing an additional 1,387 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Fortis in the first quarter valued at $864,000. Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new position in Fortis during the fourth quarter valued at about $1,751,000. Two Sigma Investments LP bought a new position in Fortis during the fourth quarter valued at about $289,000. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its holdings in Fortis by 31.6% during the first quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 702,425 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $32,017,000 after acquiring an additional 168,684 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 57.77% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

FTS has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Royal Bank Of Canada upped their price target on shares of Fortis from $69.00 to $72.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Thursday, May 8th. Desjardins raised shares of Fortis from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 5th. Raymond James Financial restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Fortis in a report on Tuesday, August 5th. Zacks Research cut Fortis from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, August 18th. Finally, CIBC upgraded Fortis from a “neutral” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, July 21st. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have given a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $72.00.

Fortis Trading Down 0.3%

Fortis stock opened at $50.6420 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $48.57 and a 200 day moving average price of $47.09. Fortis has a 52 week low of $40.32 and a 52 week high of $51.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.30, a quick ratio of 0.47 and a current ratio of 0.58. The firm has a market capitalization of $25.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.84, a P/E/G ratio of 3.95 and a beta of 0.46.

Fortis (NYSE:FTS) last announced its earnings results on Friday, August 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.55 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.51 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $2.03 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.91 billion. Fortis had a net margin of 14.48% and a return on equity of 7.24%. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.67 EPS. Research analysts forecast that Fortis will post 2.35 EPS for the current year.

Fortis Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 1st. Investors of record on Tuesday, August 19th will be given a dividend of $0.4448 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, August 19th. This is a positive change from Fortis’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.43. This represents a $1.78 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.5%. Fortis’s payout ratio is presently 73.25%.

Fortis Company Profile

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.