TD Waterhouse Canada Inc. Raises Stake in Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS)

TD Waterhouse Canada Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS - Free Report) by 3.0% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 4,339,678 shares of the utilities provider's stock after acquiring an additional 125,447 shares during the period. Fortis accounts for approximately 1.5% of TD Waterhouse Canada Inc.'s investment portfolio, making the stock its 17th biggest position. TD Waterhouse Canada Inc. owned about 0.87% of Fortis worth $179,862,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Fortis by 1.7% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 21,722,993 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $902,656,000 after acquiring an additional 364,391 shares during the last quarter. TD Asset Management Inc. raised its position in shares of Fortis by 1.4% during the 4th quarter. TD Asset Management Inc. now owns 12,266,121 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $509,425,000 after buying an additional 173,226 shares during the period. Scotia Capital Inc. lifted its holdings 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 acquiring an additional 329,767 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Fortis during the fourth quarter worth $182,242,000. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in Fortis by 77.1% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,257,486 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $180,686,000 after purchasing an additional 1,853,082 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 57.77% of the company's stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Jefferies Financial Group began coverage on Fortis in a report on Thursday, February 13th. They set a "hold" rating for the company. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and three have issued a hold rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Hold".

Fortis Trading Up 0.1 %

Shares of FTS traded up $0.04 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $48.59. 409,284 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 628,456. Fortis Inc. has a 52-week low of $38.15 and a 52-week high of $48.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.30, a quick ratio of 0.63 and a current ratio of 0.63. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $45.47 and a 200 day simple moving average of $43.99. The firm has a market cap of $24.37 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.59, a P/E/G ratio of 3.94 and a beta of 0.46.

Fortis (NYSE:FTS - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Friday, February 14th. The utilities provider reported $0.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.57 by $0.02. Fortis had a return on equity of 7.09% and a net margin of 14.12%. The company had revenue of $2.11 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.08 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.72 EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that Fortis Inc. will post 2.35 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Fortis Cuts Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Sunday, June 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 16th will be given a dividend of $0.4324 per share. This represents a $1.73 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.56%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 16th. Fortis's dividend payout ratio is currently 72.03%.

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.