18,431 Shares in Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS) Bought by Code Waechter LLC

Code Waechter LLC bought a new stake in Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS) in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor bought 18,431 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $838,000.

Several other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Gulf International Bank UK Ltd lifted its stake in shares of Fortis by 9.0% in the first quarter. Gulf International Bank UK Ltd now owns 3,340 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $132,000 after purchasing an additional 276 shares during the period. Bessemer Group Inc. increased its position in Fortis by 53.6% during the 1st quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 992 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $40,000 after purchasing an additional 346 shares in the last quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC raised its stake in Fortis by 123.5% in the 1st quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 666 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after purchasing an additional 368 shares during the last quarter. Gold Investment Management Ltd. lifted its holdings in Fortis by 0.5% in the 1st quarter. Gold Investment Management Ltd. now owns 81,179 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $3,208,000 after purchasing an additional 389 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nexus Investment Management ULC boosted its stake in shares of Fortis by 0.5% during the 2nd quarter. Nexus Investment Management ULC now owns 83,765 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $3,253,000 after purchasing an additional 400 shares during the last quarter. 57.77% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Fortis Trading Up 0.6 %

FTS stock traded up $0.27 on Friday, hitting $43.40. 342,257 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 714,343. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.26, a current ratio of 0.69 and a quick ratio of 0.58. The stock has a market capitalization of $21.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.39, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.83 and a beta of 0.47. Fortis Inc. has a twelve month low of $36.86 and a twelve month high of $46.06. The business’s fifty day moving average is $44.22 and its two-hundred day moving average is $41.23.

Fortis (NYSE:FTS) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 31st. The utilities provider reported $0.49 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.47 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $1.95 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.96 billion. Fortis had a return on equity of 7.04% and a net margin of 13.90%. As a group, research analysts forecast that Fortis Inc. will post 2.35 earnings per share for the current year.

Fortis Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Sunday, December 1st. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 18th will be paid a $0.615 dividend. This is a positive change from Fortis’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.43. This represents a $2.46 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.67%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, November 18th. Fortis’s payout ratio is currently 72.46%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages recently issued reports on FTS. StockNews.com raised shares of Fortis from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Sunday, August 4th. UBS Group raised Fortis to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 10th. Finally, Bank of America started coverage on Fortis in a research report on Friday, September 20th. They issued an “underperform” rating for the company.

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.