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

Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, September 26th, Zacks reports. Investors of record on Monday, November 18th will be given a dividend of 0.615 per share by the utilities provider on Sunday, December 1st. This represents a $2.46 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.42%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, November 18th. This is an increase from Fortis’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.43.

Fortis has raised its dividend by an average of 5.7% annually over the last three years. Fortis has a dividend payout ratio of 71.7% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Fortis to earn $2.42 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.75 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 72.3%.

Fortis Stock Performance

Fortis stock opened at $45.38 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.69, a quick ratio of 0.58 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.26. Fortis has a 1-year low of $36.30 and a 1-year high of $45.83. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.48 billion, a PE ratio of 19.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.99 and a beta of 0.47. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $43.49 and its 200 day simple moving average is $40.86.

Fortis (NYSE:FTS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The utilities provider reported $0.49 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.47 by $0.02. Fortis had a net margin of 13.90% and a return on equity of 7.04%. The business had revenue of $1.95 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.96 billion. As a group, analysts expect that Fortis will post 2.34 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

FTS has been the subject of a number of research reports. UBS Group raised shares of Fortis to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 10th. StockNews.com raised shares of Fortis from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Sunday, August 4th. Finally, Bank of America started coverage on shares of Fortis in a research note on Friday, September 20th. They issued an “underperform” rating for the company. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and two have given a hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Reduce” and a consensus target price of $61.00.

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.