National Bankshares Issues Positive Forecast for BCE (TSE:BCE) Stock Price

BCE (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) had its price objective hoisted by research analysts at National Bankshares from C$35.00 to C$36.00 in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday,BayStreet.CA reports. The firm currently has a “sector perform” rating on the stock. National Bankshares’ target price would indicate a potential upside of 1.35% from the stock’s previous close.

Several other brokerages have also issued reports on BCE. Canaccord Genuity Group boosted their target price on BCE from C$33.00 to C$33.50 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Scotiabank dropped their price objective on BCE from C$42.00 to C$40.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, February 7th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered BCE from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and reduced their target price for the stock from C$35.00 to C$29.00 in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Barclays downgraded shares of BCE from an “equal weight” rating to an “underperform” rating and reduced their price target for the stock from C$41.00 to C$30.00 in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Finally, TD Securities upped their target price on shares of BCE from C$31.00 to C$33.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of C$40.50.

BCE Trading Down 2.3 %

Shares of BCE traded down C$0.83 during trading hours on Tuesday, reaching C$35.52. 3,327,059 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,841,314. BCE has a 52-week low of C$31.43 and a 52-week high of C$49.20. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 226.73, a quick ratio of 0.43 and a current ratio of 0.62. The company has a market capitalization of C$32.17 billion, a P/E ratio of 119.16, a P/E/G ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.48. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is C$33.83.

BCE Company Profile

BCE is both a wireless and internet service provider, offering wireless, broadband, television, and landline phone services in Canada. It is one of the big three national wireless carriers, with its roughly 10 million customers constituting about 30% of the market. It is also the ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrierthe legacy telephone provider) throughout much of the eastern half of Canada, including in the most populous Canadian provincesOntario and Quebec.