Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS) Short Interest Update

Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS - Get Free Report) saw a significant decrease in short interest in the month of May. As of May 31st, there was short interest totalling 9,390,000 shares, a decrease of 39.5% from the May 15th total of 15,530,000 shares. Approximately 1.9% of the shares of the company are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 584,500 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 16.1 days.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Fortis

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Fortis by 2.5% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 22,265,742 shares of the utilities provider's stock worth $1,014,227,000 after buying an additional 542,749 shares in the last quarter. TD Asset Management Inc raised its stake in Fortis by 4.9% in the first quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 12,870,736 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $586,192,000 after purchasing an additional 604,615 shares in the last quarter. TD Asset Management Inc. raised its stake in Fortis by 1.4% in the fourth quarter. TD Asset Management Inc. now owns 12,266,121 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $509,425,000 after purchasing an additional 173,226 shares in the last quarter. Scotia Capital Inc. raised its stake in Fortis by 3.7% in the fourth quarter. Scotia Capital Inc. now owns 9,148,037 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $379,614,000 after purchasing an additional 329,767 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Toronto Dominion Bank raised its stake in Fortis by 10.9% in the fourth quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 6,218,116 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $258,068,000 after purchasing an additional 612,395 shares in the last quarter. 57.77% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Fortis Stock Performance

NYSE:FTS traded down $0.46 on Monday, reaching $47.70. 430,875 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 612,625. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.30, a current ratio of 0.63 and a quick ratio of 0.63. The firm has a market cap of $23.93 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.21, a P/E/G ratio of 3.94 and a beta of 0.49. Fortis has a 52 week low of $38.15 and a 52 week high of $50.06. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $47.86 and a 200-day simple moving average of $44.98.

Fortis (NYSE:FTS - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 7th. The utilities provider reported $0.70 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.69 by $0.01. Fortis had a net margin of 14.12% and a return on equity of 7.09%. The firm had revenue of $2.31 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.42 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.93 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Fortis will post 2.35 earnings per share for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

FTS has been the subject of several research reports. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price target on shares of Fortis from $69.00 to $72.00 and gave the company a "sector perform" rating in a research report on Thursday, May 8th. Desjardins assumed coverage on shares of Fortis in a research report on Tuesday, May 6th. They set a "hold" rating for the company. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and five have assigned a hold rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Fortis has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $72.00.

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.