TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) Given Average Recommendation of “Hold” by Analysts

Shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) have been given an average recommendation of “Hold” by the five ratings firms that are covering the stock, MarketBeat.com reports. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and two have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price objective among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $26.00.

Several brokerages have issued reports on TU. National Bank Financial cut shares of TELUS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday. Scotiabank raised shares of TELUS from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, October 28th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 21st.

TELUS Stock Performance

Shares of TELUS stock traded down $0.32 during trading on Friday, reaching $14.43. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 690,372 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,347,287. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $15.74 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $15.98. The firm has a market cap of $21.65 billion, a PE ratio of 30.81, a P/E/G ratio of 2.19 and a beta of 0.73. TELUS has a fifty-two week low of $14.40 and a fifty-two week high of $18.68. The company has a current ratio of 0.69, a quick ratio of 0.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last announced its earnings results on Friday, November 8th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.28 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.17 by $0.11. The business had revenue of $5.10 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.69 billion. TELUS had a net margin of 4.56% and a return on equity of 8.80%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.19 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that TELUS will post 0.73 EPS for the current year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 11th will be given a $0.297 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, December 11th. This is a positive change from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. This represents a $1.19 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 8.23%. TELUS’s payout ratio is currently 253.20%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On TELUS

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board lifted its holdings in TELUS by 159.6% in the 3rd quarter. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board now owns 140,539 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $2,360,000 after purchasing an additional 86,393 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in TELUS by 192.0% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,326,632 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $22,257,000 after purchasing an additional 872,235 shares in the last quarter. Entropy Technologies LP purchased a new position in TELUS in the 3rd quarter valued at about $945,000. Toronto Dominion Bank lifted its holdings in TELUS by 5.4% in the 2nd quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 12,472,610 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $188,835,000 after purchasing an additional 636,845 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nicola Wealth Management LTD. lifted its holdings in TELUS by 35.7% in the 3rd quarter. Nicola Wealth Management LTD. now owns 1,060,819 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $17,801,000 after purchasing an additional 279,000 shares in the last quarter. 49.40% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

TELUS Company Profile

TELUS Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides a range of telecommunications and information technology products and services in Canada. It operates through Technology Solutions and Digitally-Led Customer Experiences segments. The Technology Solutions segment offers a range of telecommunications products and services; network services; healthcare services; mobile technologies equipment; data services, such as internet protocol; television; hosting, managed information technology, and cloud-based services; software, data management, and data analytics-driven smart food-chain and consumer goods technologies; home and business security; healthcare software and technology solutions; and voice and other telecommunications services, as well as mobile and fixed voice and data telecommunications services and products.