Avista (NYSE:AVA) Releases FY24 Earnings Guidance

Avista (NYSE:AVA) issued an update on its FY24 earnings guidance on Wednesday morning. The company provided earnings per share guidance of $2.36-2.56 for the period, compared to the consensus earnings per share estimate of $2.41. Avista also updated its FY 2024 guidance to 2.360-2.560 EPS.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently commented on AVA. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Avista from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report on Thursday. Guggenheim raised Avista from a sell rating to a neutral rating and set a $34.00 price target on the stock in a report on Monday, January 22nd. Finally, Mizuho upgraded Avista from an underperform rating to a neutral rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $32.00 to $36.00 in a report on Friday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and three have given a hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $35.00.

Avista Stock Performance

NYSE:AVA traded up $0.51 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $37.30. The company had a trading volume of 514,268 shares, compared to its average volume of 466,379. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $34.47 and its 200-day moving average price is $34.35. The firm has a market cap of $2.92 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.48 and a beta of 0.48. The company has a current ratio of 0.97, a quick ratio of 0.65 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.05. Avista has a 52 week low of $30.53 and a 52 week high of $44.76.

Avista (NYSE:AVA) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.91 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.00 by ($0.09). The firm had revenue of $594.90 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $469.34 million. Avista had a return on equity of 7.65% and a net margin of 9.96%. The business’s revenue was up 29.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.73 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Avista will post 2.46 EPS for the current year.

Avista Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 23rd will be issued a $0.475 dividend. This represents a $1.90 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.09%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 22nd. Avista’s payout ratio is 78.84%.

Avista Company Profile

Avista Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an electric and natural gas utility company. It operates in two segments, Avista Utilities and AEL&P. The Avista Utilities segment provides electric distribution and transmission, and natural gas distribution services in parts of eastern Washington and northern Idaho; and natural gas distribution services in parts of northeastern and southwestern Oregon, as well as generates electricity in Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and Montana.