Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. Sells 47,342 Shares of Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS)

Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. cut its stake in shares of Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS - Free Report) by 14.1% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 288,977 shares of the utilities provider's stock after selling 47,342 shares during the period. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. owned approximately 0.06% of Fortis worth $13,131,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Private Advisor Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Fortis during the first quarter worth $725,000. Quantbot Technologies LP bought a new position in Fortis during the first quarter worth about $1,485,000. Forsta AP Fonden grew its stake in Fortis by 10.9% in the first quarter. Forsta AP Fonden now owns 145,000 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $5,735,000 after acquiring an additional 14,200 shares during the period. Headlands Technologies LLC bought a new stake in shares of Fortis in the first quarter worth about $69,000. Finally, Addison Capital Co raised its position in shares of Fortis by 6.7% during the first quarter. Addison Capital Co now owns 38,972 shares of the utilities provider's stock worth $1,540,000 after purchasing an additional 2,433 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 57.77% of the company's stock.

Fortis Stock Performance

Shares of FTS stock traded up $0.34 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $44.18. 848,115 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 560,332. Fortis Inc. has a 52 week low of $36.86 and a 52 week high of $46.06. The firm has a market capitalization of $21.97 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.56, a PEG ratio of 3.98 and a beta of 0.47. The firm's 50 day moving average price is $44.45 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $41.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.26, a quick ratio of 0.58 and a current ratio of 0.69.

Fortis (NYSE:FTS - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, November 5th. The utilities provider reported $0.85 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.59 by $0.26. Fortis had a return on equity of 7.03% and a net margin of 14.06%. The business had revenue of $2.03 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.01 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.63 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Fortis Inc. will post 2.32 earnings per share for the current year.

Fortis Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Sunday, December 1st. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 18th will be issued a dividend of $0.615 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, November 18th. This is a boost from Fortis's previous quarterly dividend of $0.43. This represents a $2.46 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.57%. Fortis's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 76.05%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently issued reports on FTS. StockNews.com raised Fortis from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Sunday, August 4th. Raymond James lowered shares of Fortis from an "outperform" rating to a "market perform" rating in a report on Wednesday. UBS Group raised Fortis to a "strong sell" rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 10th. Finally, Bank of America assumed coverage on shares of Fortis in a research note on Friday, September 20th. They set an "underperform" rating on the stock. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and two have assigned a hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Fortis has a consensus rating of "Reduce".

Fortis Company 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.