NorthWestern (NASDAQ:NWE) Sets New 1-Year High – Time to Buy?

NorthWestern Corporation (NASDAQ:NWE) reached a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Wednesday . The stock traded as high as $67.17 and last traded at $67.12, with a volume of 686745 shares. The stock had previously closed at $66.16.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on NWE. Wells Fargo & Company raised NorthWestern to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 28th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of NorthWestern in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Finally, Barclays upgraded shares of NorthWestern to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 21st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has given a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, NorthWestern currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $56.00.

NorthWestern Trading Down 0.4%

The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $59.02. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.93, a PEG ratio of 2.69 and a beta of 0.42. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.06, a quick ratio of 0.45 and a current ratio of 0.65.

NorthWestern (NASDAQ:NWE) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The company reported $0.79 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.75 by $0.04. NorthWestern had a net margin of 13.82% and a return on equity of 7.56%. The firm had revenue of $387.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $380.96 million.

About NorthWestern

NorthWestern Energy Group, Inc provides electricity and natural gas to residential, commercial, and various industrial customers. It generates, purchases, transmits, and distributes electricity; and produces, purchases, stores, transmits, and distributes natural gas, as well as owns municipal franchises to provide natural gas service in the communities.