Short Interest in TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) Grows By 50.6%

TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) saw a large growth in short interest in the month of February. As of February 28th, there was short interest totalling 15,120,000 shares, a growth of 50.6% from the February 13th total of 10,040,000 shares. Currently, 5.1% of the shares of the stock are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 1,930,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 7.8 days.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

TAC has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Cibc World Mkts raised TransAlta from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 18th. Scotiabank downgraded TransAlta from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 23rd. StockNews.com downgraded TransAlta from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, February 21st. Finally, CIBC raised TransAlta from a “neutral” rating to an “outperformer” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $23.00 to $19.50 in a research note on Tuesday, February 18th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $19.50.

TransAlta Price Performance

NYSE:TAC traded up $0.13 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $9.54. The stock had a trading volume of 1,555,939 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,162,290. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.94, a quick ratio of 0.67 and a current ratio of 0.74. TransAlta has a 52 week low of $5.94 and a 52 week high of $14.64. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $11.36 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $11.13. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.84 billion, a PE ratio of 23.26 and a beta of 0.89.

TransAlta (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported ($0.16) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.12 by ($0.28). The company had revenue of $484.60 million during the quarter. TransAlta had a return on equity of 18.47% and a net margin of 6.38%. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that TransAlta will post 0.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

TransAlta Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 1st. Stockholders of record on Sunday, June 1st will be issued a $0.0458 dividend. This is a boost from TransAlta’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.04. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 30th. This represents a $0.18 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.92%. TransAlta’s payout ratio is 43.90%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On TransAlta

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Polar Asset Management Partners Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of TransAlta by 65.7% in the 4th quarter. Polar Asset Management Partners Inc. now owns 82,850 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,171,000 after purchasing an additional 32,850 shares during the period. Vident Advisory LLC boosted its holdings in TransAlta by 5.3% during the 4th quarter. Vident Advisory LLC now owns 69,004 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $976,000 after acquiring an additional 3,499 shares during the period. Squarepoint Ops LLC purchased a new position in TransAlta during the 4th quarter valued at $388,000. Two Sigma Investments LP purchased a new position in TransAlta during the 4th quarter valued at $195,000. Finally, Tidal Investments LLC purchased a new position in TransAlta during the 4th quarter valued at $497,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 59.00% of the company’s stock.

About TransAlta

TransAlta Corporation engages in the development, production, and sale of electric energy. It operates through Hydro, Wind and Solar, Gas, Energy Transition, and Energy Marketing segments. The Hydro segment holds interest of approximately 922 megawatts (MW) of owned hydroelectric generating capacity located in Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario.