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

Shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) have received a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the five ratings firms that are presently covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and two have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 12 month price target among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $26.00.

Several analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Morgan Stanley initiated coverage on TELUS in a research report on Monday, December 16th. They set an “equal weight” rating for the company. StockNews.com lowered shares of TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Thursday, November 21st. Scotiabank upgraded shares of TELUS from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a report on Monday, October 28th. Finally, National Bank Financial lowered shares of TELUS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th.

Institutional Trading of TELUS

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Fairscale Capital LLC purchased a new stake in TELUS in the second quarter valued at $27,000. Versant Capital Management Inc increased its holdings in TELUS by 195,100.0% in the fourth quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 1,952 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after buying an additional 1,951 shares in the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. raised its holdings in TELUS by 58.0% in the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 4,001 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $67,000 after purchasing an additional 1,468 shares during the period. Trust Co. of Vermont raised its stake in shares of TELUS by 19.0% during the 3rd quarter. Trust Co. of Vermont now owns 7,623 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $128,000 after buying an additional 1,218 shares during the period. Finally, Acadian Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in TELUS during the second quarter valued at $123,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

TELUS Trading Down 1.8 %

Shares of TU stock opened at $13.65 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $20.48 billion, a PE ratio of 29.04, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.10 and a beta of 0.74. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50, a current ratio of 0.69 and a quick ratio of 0.63. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $14.77 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $15.64. TELUS has a 1 year low of $13.24 and a 1 year high of $18.55.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last released its earnings results on Friday, November 8th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.28 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.11. The firm had revenue of $5.10 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.69 billion. TELUS had a net margin of 4.56% and a return on equity of 8.80%. The business’s revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.19 EPS. Research analysts predict that TELUS will post 0.73 earnings per share for the current year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, December 11th were given a dividend of $0.297 per share. This represents a $1.19 annualized dividend and a yield of 8.70%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, December 11th. This is an increase from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. TELUS’s payout ratio is currently 253.19%.

About TELUS

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.