Fortis (TSE:FTS) Rating Increased to Strong Sell at UBS Group

Fortis (TSE:FTS) was upgraded by research analysts at UBS Group to a “strong sell” rating in a research note issued on Tuesday, Zacks.com reports.

Other equities analysts have also recently issued research reports about the stock. BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on shares of Fortis from C$59.00 to C$61.00 in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. Raymond James lifted their price objective on Fortis from C$59.00 to C$61.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, August 1st. Scotiabank increased their target price on Fortis from C$56.00 to C$63.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 20th. National Bankshares boosted their price target on Fortis from C$56.00 to C$62.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, August 23rd. Finally, CIBC increased their price objective on Fortis from C$57.00 to C$59.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 1st. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Fortis currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of C$59.10.

Fortis Stock Performance

Shares of TSE:FTS traded up C$0.18 on Tuesday, hitting C$60.93. 41,030 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,648,229. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 128.59, a quick ratio of 0.36 and a current ratio of 0.69. The company’s 50 day moving average price is C$57.82 and its two-hundred day moving average price is C$55.16. Fortis has a one year low of C$49.82 and a one year high of C$61.30. The firm has a market capitalization of C$30.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.12, a PEG ratio of 2.80 and a beta of 0.22.

Fortis (TSE:FTS) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 31st. The company reported C$0.67 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of C$0.65 by C$0.02. The company had revenue of C$2.67 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of C$2.71 billion. Fortis had a return on equity of 7.44% and a net margin of 14.35%. Research analysts expect that Fortis will post 3.3416115 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity at Fortis

In other Fortis news, Senior Officer James Reid sold 19,972 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of C$59.46, for a total transaction of C$1,187,493.18. 0.04% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.