Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS) Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.62

Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, September 26th,Zacks Dividends reports. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 18th will be paid a dividend of 0.615 per share by the utilities provider on Sunday, December 1st. This represents a $2.46 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.57%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, November 18th. This is an increase from Fortis’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.43.

Fortis has raised its dividend payment by an average of 5.7% annually over the last three years. Fortis has a payout ratio of 72.8% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Fortis to earn $2.41 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.77 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 73.4%.

Fortis Stock Down 0.2 %

FTS opened at $44.17 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $21.97 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.04 and a beta of 0.47. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.26, a quick ratio of 0.58 and a current ratio of 0.69. Fortis has a one year low of $36.86 and a one year high of $46.06. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $44.41 and its 200-day simple moving average is $42.16.

Fortis (NYSE:FTS) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November 5th. The utilities provider reported $0.85 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.59 by $0.26. The business had revenue of $2.03 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.01 billion. Fortis had a return on equity of 7.03% and a net margin of 14.06%. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.63 earnings per share. Analysts anticipate that Fortis will post 2.32 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have issued reports on FTS. Raymond James downgraded shares of Fortis from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. UBS Group upgraded Fortis to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 10th. StockNews.com raised Fortis from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Sunday, August 4th. Finally, Bank of America assumed coverage on Fortis in a report on Friday, September 20th. They issued an “underperform” rating on the stock. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and two have issued a hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Reduce”.

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.