First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. Makes New Investment in Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS)

First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. acquired a new position in Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 5,340 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $220,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in FTS. Rational Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Fortis during the 3rd quarter valued at about $41,000. NBC Securities Inc. purchased a new stake in Fortis in the 3rd quarter worth $96,000. Lindbrook Capital LLC lifted its position in shares of Fortis by 111.2% in the fourth quarter. Lindbrook Capital LLC now owns 2,598 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $107,000 after acquiring an additional 1,368 shares in the last quarter. Versor Investments LP boosted its stake in shares of Fortis by 12.0% in the third quarter. Versor Investments LP now owns 6,535 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $248,000 after acquiring an additional 700 shares during the period. Finally, Cerity Partners LLC bought a new stake in Fortis during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $254,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 57.77% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, StockNews.com downgraded shares of Fortis from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Thursday, April 11th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $55.13.

Fortis Stock Up 0.5 %

Shares of FTS opened at $40.40 on Thursday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $39.15 and its 200-day simple moving average is $39.96. Fortis Inc. has a 1 year low of $36.30 and a 1 year high of $46.28. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.24, a current ratio of 0.60 and a quick ratio of 0.52. The stock has a market capitalization of $19.92 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.41, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.83 and a beta of 0.42.

Fortis (NYSE:FTS) last released its quarterly earnings data on Friday, February 9th. The utilities provider reported $0.53 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.52 by $0.01. Fortis had a net margin of 13.66% and a return on equity of 7.02%. The business had revenue of $2.12 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.39 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.53 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that Fortis Inc. will post 2.35 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Fortis Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Saturday, June 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 17th will be paid a dividend of $0.4382 per share. This is a boost from Fortis’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.44. This represents a $1.75 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.34%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 16th. Fortis’s payout ratio is presently 55.17%.

Fortis 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.