TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) Given Consensus Recommendation of “Hold” by Brokerages

Shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) have earned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the five research firms that are covering the firm, 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 target price among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $26.00.

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

Institutional Investors Weigh In On TELUS

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board boosted its stake in shares of TELUS by 159.6% in the third 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 during the period. FMR LLC boosted its stake in shares of TELUS by 192.0% in the third 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 during the period. Entropy Technologies LP purchased a new position in shares of TELUS in the third quarter valued at approximately $945,000. Toronto Dominion Bank lifted its stake in TELUS by 5.4% in the second quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 12,472,610 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $188,835,000 after acquiring an additional 636,845 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Nicola Wealth Management LTD. lifted its stake in TELUS by 35.7% in the third quarter. Nicola Wealth Management LTD. now owns 1,060,819 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $17,801,000 after acquiring an additional 279,000 shares during the last quarter. 49.40% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

TELUS Price Performance

NYSE TU traded down $0.32 on Friday, reaching $14.43. The company had a trading volume of 690,372 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,347,287. The company has a quick ratio of 0.63, a current ratio of 0.69 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50. The stock has a market capitalization of $21.65 billion, a PE ratio of 30.81, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.19 and a beta of 0.73. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $15.74 and its 200 day moving average price is $15.98. TELUS has a 12 month low of $14.40 and a 12 month high of $18.68.

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

TELUS Increases Dividend

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

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.