TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) Stock Position Trimmed by Scotia Capital Inc.

Scotia Capital Inc. decreased its position in TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) by 31.5% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 581,325 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 267,211 shares during the period. Scotia Capital Inc. owned approximately 0.20% of TransAlta worth $8,192,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new stake in TransAlta during the 4th quarter valued at $822,000. Bank of Montreal Can raised its position in shares of TransAlta by 8.4% during the 4th quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 9,290,110 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $131,222,000 after buying an additional 716,139 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its stake in shares of TransAlta by 79.7% in the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 8,255,923 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $116,764,000 after acquiring an additional 3,662,900 shares during the period. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of TransAlta by 52.1% during the fourth quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 37,597 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $532,000 after acquiring an additional 12,871 shares during the period. Finally, ExodusPoint Capital Management LP acquired a new stake in TransAlta in the fourth quarter worth approximately $1,913,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 59.00% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

TAC has been the topic of several research reports. CIBC upgraded shares of TransAlta from a “neutral” rating to an “outperformer” rating and dropped their price target for the stock from $23.00 to $19.50 in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. Cibc World Mkts raised TransAlta from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. StockNews.com lowered shares of TransAlta from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, February 21st. Finally, Scotiabank cut shares of TransAlta from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 23rd. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, TransAlta has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $19.50.

TransAlta Stock Down 3.5 %

TransAlta stock opened at $8.53 on Friday. TransAlta Co. has a 1-year low of $5.94 and a 1-year high of $14.64. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $9.82 and its 200-day simple moving average is $11.12. The company has a current ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 0.67 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.94. The company has a market capitalization of $2.54 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.79 and a beta of 0.72.

TransAlta (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported ($0.16) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.12 by ($0.28). TransAlta had a net margin of 6.38% and a return on equity of 18.47%. The firm had revenue of $484.60 million during the quarter. Sell-side analysts forecast that TransAlta Co. will post 0.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

TransAlta Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 1st. Shareholders of record on Sunday, June 1st will be given a $0.0458 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, May 30th. This represents a $0.18 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.15%. This is an increase from TransAlta’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.04. TransAlta’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 43.90%.

About TransAlta

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.