Press coverage about Fortis (NYSE:FTS) has trended somewhat positive recently, according to Accern Sentiment. The research firm ranks the sentiment of news coverage by reviewing more than 20 million news and blog sources in real-time. Accern ranks coverage of public companies on a scale of negative one to positive one, with scores closest to one being the most favorable. Fortis earned a news sentiment score of 0.20 on Accern’s scale. Accern also assigned news headlines about the utilities provider an impact score of 46.2186023627226 out of 100, meaning that recent news coverage is somewhat unlikely to have an effect on the company’s share price in the immediate future.
A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. CIBC cut shares of Fortis from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 3rd. Zacks Investment Research upgraded shares of Fortis from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $39.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Monday, July 3rd. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company. Fortis presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $38.00.
Shares of Fortis (NYSE:FTS) traded up 0.47% during midday trading on Friday, hitting $36.07. 143,374 shares of the company were exchanged. Fortis has a one year low of $29.14 and a one year high of $36.96. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $35.64 and its 200 day moving average price is $33.54. The firm has a market cap of $15.07 billion and a P/E ratio of 19.73.
Fortis (NYSE:FTS) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, July 28th. The utilities provider reported $0.45 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.41 by $0.04. Fortis had a return on equity of 6.87% and a net margin of 11.03%. The business had revenue of $2.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.16 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.45 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 35.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts expect that Fortis will post $2.49 EPS for the current year.
The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 1st. Stockholders of record on Monday, August 21st will be paid a dividend of $0.3197 per share. This represents a $1.28 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.55%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, August 17th. This is a positive change from Fortis’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.31. Fortis’s dividend payout ratio is 74.42%.
COPYRIGHT VIOLATION WARNING: This story was originally posted by StockNewsTimes and is owned by of StockNewsTimes. If you are accessing this story on another site, it was stolen and reposted in violation of international copyright & trademark legislation. The correct version of this story can be viewed at https://stocknewstimes.com/2017/08/21/somewhat-positive-press-coverage-somewhat-unlikely-to-affect-fortis-fts-stock-price.html.
About Fortis
Fortis Inc operates as an electric and gas utility company in Canada, the United States, and the Caribbean. It generates, transmits, and distributes electricity to approximately 420,000 retail customers in a territory comprising approximately 2,991 square kilometers located in southeastern Arizona, including the greater Tucson metropolitan area in Pima county, as well as parts of Cochise county; and 95,000 retail customers in Arizonas Mohave and Santa Cruz counties with an aggregate capacity of 2,994 megawatts (MW) comprising 54 MW of solar capacity.
Receive News & Ratings for Fortis Inc. Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Fortis Inc. and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.
