Avista Co. (NYSE:AVA) Raises Dividend to $0.49 Per Share

Avista Co. (NYSE:AVA) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, February 12th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, February 26th will be paid a dividend of 0.49 per share by the utilities provider on Friday, March 14th. This represents a $1.96 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.30%. This is an increase from Avista’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.48.

Avista has increased its dividend by an average of 4.0% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 22 consecutive years. Avista has a dividend payout ratio of 69.9% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Avista to earn $2.50 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.90 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 76.0%.

Avista Trading Down 0.7 %

Shares of AVA stock traded down $0.25 on Wednesday, hitting $36.97. The stock had a trading volume of 393,746 shares, compared to its average volume of 451,877. The firm has a market cap of $2.93 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.73, a PEG ratio of 2.76 and a beta of 0.49. Avista has a twelve month low of $31.91 and a twelve month high of $39.99. The company has a current ratio of 0.75, a quick ratio of 0.48 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.05. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $36.56 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $37.64.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price target on Avista from $40.00 to $39.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 28th.

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.