TransAlta Corporation (NYSE:TAC) Receives $19.88 Average Price Target from Analysts

Shares of TransAlta Corporation (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) have been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the nine ratings firms that are presently covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, five have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. The average 12 month price target among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $19.8750.

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on TAC shares. Zacks Research lowered TransAlta from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, October 3rd. Weiss Ratings restated a “sell (d+)” rating on shares of TransAlta in a research report on Saturday, September 27th. TD Securities restated a “buy” rating and issued a $20.00 price objective (up from $19.00) on shares of TransAlta in a report on Tuesday, August 5th. Jefferies Financial Group upgraded shares of TransAlta from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, June 12th. Finally, Wall Street Zen raised TransAlta from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, June 14th.

Institutional Trading of TransAlta

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Orion Porfolio Solutions LLC acquired a new stake in shares of TransAlta in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $159,000. Squarepoint Ops LLC boosted its position in shares of TransAlta by 68.0% during the second quarter. Squarepoint Ops LLC now owns 64,775 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $699,000 after purchasing an additional 26,215 shares in the last quarter. Rubric Capital Management LP lifted its holdings in TransAlta by 32.9% during the second quarter. Rubric Capital Management LP now owns 15,948,451 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $172,084,000 after acquiring an additional 3,948,451 shares in the last quarter. BTG Pactual Asset Management US LLC bought a new position in TransAlta during the second quarter worth about $904,000. Finally, Balyasny Asset Management L.P. lifted its holdings in shares of TransAlta by 418.8% during the 2nd quarter. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. now owns 295,347 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $3,186,000 after purchasing an additional 238,422 shares in the last quarter. 59.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

TransAlta Price Performance

TransAlta stock opened at $14.99 on Friday. The business’s fifty day moving average is $12.78 and its two-hundred day moving average is $10.94. The firm has a market cap of $4.45 billion, a P/E ratio of -35.68 and a beta of 0.79. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.98, a quick ratio of 0.72 and a current ratio of 0.79. TransAlta has a 52 week low of $7.82 and a 52 week high of $15.01.

TransAlta (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) last announced its earnings results on Friday, August 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.07 by $0.06. TransAlta had a negative net margin of 6.79% and a negative return on equity of 2.06%. The company had revenue of $451.20 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $473.94 million. Equities research analysts forecast that TransAlta will post 0.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

TransAlta Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 1st. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 1st were paid a $0.065 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 29th. This is a positive change from TransAlta’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.05. This represents a $0.26 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.7%. TransAlta’s payout ratio is currently -45.24%.

TransAlta Company Profile

TransAlta Corporation engages in the development, production, and sale of electric energy. It operates through Hydro, Wind and Solar, Gas, Energy Transition, and Energy Marketing segments. The Hydro segment holds interest of approximately 922 megawatts (MW) of owned hydroelectric generating capacity located in Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario.