First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. Acquires 428 Shares of Avista Co. (NYSE:AVA)

First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. raised its stake in shares of Avista Co. (NYSE:AVA) by 7.3% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 6,330 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 428 shares during the quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P.’s holdings in Avista were worth $245,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Headlands Technologies LLC acquired a new position in shares of Avista during the 1st quarter valued at about $27,000. Quest Partners LLC bought a new stake in Avista during the second quarter worth approximately $40,000. EntryPoint Capital LLC acquired a new position in Avista during the first quarter valued at approximately $73,000. Blue Trust Inc. grew its holdings in Avista by 559.7% during the third quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 3,061 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $119,000 after purchasing an additional 2,597 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Picton Mahoney Asset Management bought a new position in shares of Avista in the second quarter valued at approximately $154,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 85.24% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In related news, VP David J. Meyer sold 2,400 shares of Avista stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $38.32, for a total transaction of $91,968.00. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 5,436 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $208,307.52. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.96% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, Bank of America assumed coverage on shares of Avista in a research note on Thursday, September 12th. They issued an “underperform” rating and a $37.00 target price on the stock.

Avista Stock Performance

AVA opened at $37.23 on Wednesday. Avista Co. has a 12-month low of $31.91 and a 12-month high of $39.99. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.93 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.07, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.17 and a beta of 0.47. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $38.12 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $37.18. The company has a quick ratio of 0.60, a current ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.05.

Avista (NYSE:AVA) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 7th. The utilities provider reported $0.29 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.22 by $0.07. The firm had revenue of $390.80 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $386.69 million. Avista had a net margin of 10.12% and a return on equity of 7.77%. The business’s revenue was up 6.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.23 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that Avista Co. will post 2.41 earnings per share for the current year.

About Avista

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.