Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. Cuts Holdings in TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC)

Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. lessened its position in shares of TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) by 15.8% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 15,793 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 2,967 shares during the period. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.’s holdings in TransAlta were worth $223,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Tobam acquired a new position in shares of TransAlta in the 4th quarter valued at about $46,000. Quantbot Technologies LP purchased a new position in TransAlta in the third quarter valued at approximately $61,000. Entropy Technologies LP acquired a new position in TransAlta during the third quarter valued at approximately $130,000. Ballentine Partners LLC acquired a new position in TransAlta during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $145,000. Finally, Private Advisor Group LLC purchased a new stake in TransAlta during the fourth quarter worth approximately $150,000. 59.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently commented on TAC. StockNews.com downgraded shares of TransAlta from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, February 21st. CIBC raised TransAlta from a “neutral” rating to an “outperformer” rating and cut their price objective for the company 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. Finally, Scotiabank downgraded TransAlta from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a 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. According to MarketBeat.com, TransAlta has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $19.50.

TransAlta Stock Performance

TransAlta stock opened at $9.32 on Monday. TransAlta Co. has a 12-month low of $5.94 and a 12-month high of $14.64. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.94, a current ratio of 0.74 and a quick ratio of 0.67. The company has a market capitalization of $2.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.72 and a beta of 0.89. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $11.85 and its 200 day moving average price is $11.13.

TransAlta (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported ($0.16) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.12 by ($0.28). TransAlta had a return on equity of 18.47% and a net margin of 6.38%. The business had revenue of $484.60 million during the quarter. On average, research analysts forecast that TransAlta Co. will post 0.41 EPS for the current fiscal year.

TransAlta Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 1st. Stockholders of record on Sunday, June 1st will be given a dividend of $0.0458 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 30th. This represents a $0.18 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.97%. This is an increase from TransAlta’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.04. TransAlta’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 43.90%.

TransAlta 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.