BCE Inc. (BCE) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $1.00 on April 15th

BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, March 14th, TickerTech Dividends reports. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, April 15th will be paid a dividend of 0.9975 per share on Tuesday, April 15th. This represents a $3.99 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 11.34%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 14th.

BCE Stock Down 1.6 %

Shares of TSE:BCE traded down C$0.59 during trading on Wednesday, reaching C$35.19. 1,185,730 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,826,941. BCE has a 52-week low of C$31.43 and a 52-week high of C$49.13. The stock has a market cap of C$31.87 billion, a P/E ratio of 118.06, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.48. The stock has a 50-day moving average of C$33.88 and a two-hundred day moving average of C$39.18. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 226.73, a quick ratio of 0.43 and a current ratio of 0.62.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

BCE has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their target price on BCE from C$45.00 to C$41.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Scotiabank dropped their price objective on BCE from C$42.00 to C$40.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 7th. TD Securities upped their target price on shares of BCE from C$31.00 to C$33.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, February 7th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of BCE from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and dropped their price target for the company from C$35.00 to C$29.00 in a report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group boosted their price objective on shares of BCE from C$33.00 to C$33.50 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of C$40.50.

About BCE

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.