Fortis (FTS) to Release Earnings on Wednesday

Fortis (NYSE:FTS) is scheduled to announce its earnings results before the market opens on Wednesday, May 1st. Analysts expect the company to announce earnings of $0.68 per share for the quarter. Parties that wish to register for the company’s conference call can do so using this link.

Fortis (NYSE:FTS) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 9th. The utilities provider reported $0.53 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.52 by $0.01. Fortis had a return on equity of 7.00% and a net margin of 13.22%. The firm had revenue of $2.12 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.39 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.53 earnings per share. On average, analysts expect Fortis to post $2 EPS for the current fiscal year and $2 EPS for the next fiscal year.

Fortis Trading Up 1.3 %

Fortis stock opened at $39.55 on Tuesday. Fortis has a one year low of $36.30 and a one year high of $46.28. The business’s fifty day moving average is $39.10 and its 200 day moving average is $39.96. The stock has a market capitalization of $19.50 billion, a PE ratio of 17.20, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.75 and a beta of 0.42. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.27, a current ratio of 0.67 and a quick ratio of 0.58.

Fortis Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Saturday, June 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 17th will be paid a dividend of $0.4382 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 16th. This represents a $1.75 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.43%. This is a boost from Fortis’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.44. Fortis’s dividend payout ratio is currently 55.22%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, StockNews.com cut shares of Fortis from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Thursday, April 11th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $55.13.

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.