Avista (NYSE:AVA) Updates FY 2024 Earnings Guidance

Avista (NYSE:AVA) issued an update on its FY 2024 earnings guidance on Wednesday morning. The company provided earnings per share guidance of 2.360-2.560 for the period, compared to the consensus earnings per share estimate of 2.390. The company issued revenue guidance of -. Avista also updated its FY24 guidance to $2.36-2.56 EPS.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Guggenheim upgraded shares of Avista from a sell rating to a neutral rating and set a $34.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Monday, January 22nd. Mizuho upgraded Avista from an underperform rating to a neutral rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $32.00 to $36.00 in a research note on Friday. Finally, StockNews.com lowered Avista from a hold rating to a sell rating in a report on Thursday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and three have assigned a hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Avista has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $35.00.

Avista Price Performance

NYSE:AVA traded up $0.51 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $37.30. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 514,268 shares, compared to its average volume of 466,379. Avista has a twelve month low of $30.53 and a twelve month high of $44.76. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.05, a current ratio of 0.97 and a quick ratio of 0.65. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $34.47 and a 200-day simple moving average of $34.35. The company has a market capitalization of $2.92 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.48 and a beta of 0.48.

Avista (NYSE:AVA) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.00 by ($0.09). Avista had a net margin of 9.96% and a return on equity of 7.65%. The company had revenue of $594.90 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $469.34 million. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.73 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 29.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts anticipate that Avista will post 2.46 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Avista Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 23rd will be given a $0.475 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, May 22nd. This represents a $1.90 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.09%. Avista’s dividend payout ratio is currently 78.84%.

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.