Dixon Mitchell Investment Counsel Inc. Takes $60,000 Position in Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS)

Dixon Mitchell Investment Counsel Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS) during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund bought 1,513 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $60,000.

Other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Fortis by 2.2% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 19,842,130 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $816,107,000 after purchasing an additional 421,120 shares in the last quarter. FIL Ltd boosted its position in shares of Fortis by 33.8% during the fourth quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 19,477,406 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $801,263,000 after purchasing an additional 4,924,031 shares in the last quarter. TD Asset Management Inc boosted its position in shares of Fortis by 22.3% during the fourth quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 13,380,619 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $553,145,000 after purchasing an additional 2,438,223 shares in the last quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp boosted its position in shares of Fortis by 7.5% during the fourth quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 8,080,594 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $332,583,000 after purchasing an additional 561,176 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Scotia Capital Inc. boosted its holdings in Fortis by 1.6% in the fourth quarter. Scotia Capital Inc. now owns 7,848,435 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $322,244,000 after acquiring an additional 124,197 shares in the last quarter. 57.77% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, StockNews.com downgraded Fortis from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 29th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $55.13.

Fortis Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:FTS traded up $0.15 during midday trading on Tuesday, reaching $38.76. 346,550 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 767,489. The company has a market cap of $19.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.71, a P/E/G ratio of 2.77 and a beta of 0.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.24, a quick ratio of 0.52 and a current ratio of 0.60. Fortis Inc. has a one year low of $36.30 and a one year high of $43.84. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $39.71 and a 200 day moving average of $39.72.

Fortis (NYSE:FTS) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.69 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.65 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $2.31 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.43 billion. Fortis had a return on equity of 7.02% and a net margin of 13.66%. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Fortis Inc. will post 2.33 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.