TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) Sees Large Decline in Short Interest

TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) was the recipient of a significant decline in short interest during the month of March. As of March 15th, there was short interest totalling 12,800,000 shares, a decline of 15.3% from the February 28th total of 15,120,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 1,920,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 6.7 days. Approximately 4.3% of the shares of the company are sold short.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On TransAlta

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of TAC. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its stake in shares of TransAlta by 321.7% during the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 405,715 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $5,735,000 after acquiring an additional 309,509 shares during the period. Polar Asset Management Partners Inc. increased its position in shares of TransAlta by 65.7% during the 4th quarter. Polar Asset Management Partners Inc. now owns 82,850 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,171,000 after purchasing an additional 32,850 shares during the period. Vident Advisory LLC raised its stake in shares of TransAlta by 5.3% in the 4th quarter. Vident Advisory LLC now owns 69,004 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $976,000 after buying an additional 3,499 shares in the last quarter. Squarepoint Ops LLC acquired a new stake in shares of TransAlta in the fourth quarter valued at $388,000. Finally, Two Sigma Investments LP bought a new position in TransAlta during the fourth quarter valued at about $195,000. 59.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

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

TransAlta Trading Down 1.3 %

Shares of NYSE:TAC opened at $9.35 on Tuesday. TransAlta has a fifty-two week low of $5.94 and a fifty-two week high of $14.64. The company has a quick ratio of 0.67, a current ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.94. The company has a market cap of $2.78 billion, a PE ratio of 22.79 and a beta of 0.89. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $10.51 and its 200 day moving average price is $11.20.

TransAlta (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported ($0.16) earnings per share (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 for the quarter. Sell-side analysts anticipate that TransAlta will post 0.41 earnings per share for the current year.

TransAlta Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 1st. Stockholders of record on Sunday, June 1st will be issued a dividend of $0.0458 per share. This represents a $0.18 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.96%. This is a positive change from TransAlta’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.04. The ex-dividend date is Friday, May 30th. TransAlta’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 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.