Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS) Short Interest Update

Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS) saw a significant drop in short interest in March. As of March 15th, there was short interest totalling 5,650,000 shares, a drop of 31.1% from the February 28th total of 8,200,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 574,800 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 9.8 days. Approximately 1.1% of the company’s shares are short sold.

Fortis Stock Up 1.1 %

Shares of NYSE:FTS traded up $0.48 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $46.06. 321,300 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 624,567. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $43.99 and a 200-day moving average price of $43.71. Fortis has a 52 week low of $36.86 and a 52 week high of $46.37. The company has a current ratio of 0.63, a quick ratio of 0.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.30. The company has a market cap of $23.00 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.53, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.94 and a beta of 0.48.

Fortis (NYSE:FTS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 14th. The utilities provider reported $0.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.57 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $2.11 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.08 billion. Fortis had a net margin of 14.12% and a return on equity of 7.09%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.72 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that Fortis will post 2.35 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Fortis Cuts Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Sunday, June 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 16th will be paid a $0.4324 dividend. This represents a $1.73 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.75%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 16th. Fortis’s dividend payout ratio is 72.03%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, Jefferies Financial Group initiated coverage on shares of Fortis in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. They issued a “hold” rating for the company. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and three have issued a hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold”.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of FTS. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Fortis by 1.7% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 21,722,993 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $902,656,000 after acquiring an additional 364,391 shares during the last quarter. TD Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Fortis by 1.4% in the fourth quarter. TD Asset Management Inc. now owns 12,266,121 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $509,425,000 after purchasing an additional 173,226 shares in the last quarter. Scotia Capital Inc. grew its position in Fortis by 3.7% in the fourth quarter. Scotia Capital Inc. now owns 9,148,037 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $379,614,000 after purchasing an additional 329,767 shares in the last quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank grew its position in Fortis by 10.9% in the fourth quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 6,218,116 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $258,068,000 after purchasing an additional 612,395 shares in the last quarter. Finally, National Bank of Canada FI increased its stake in Fortis by 21.8% in the 3rd quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 5,190,336 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $235,839,000 after buying an additional 930,331 shares during the last quarter. 57.77% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.