BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Hold” from Analysts

BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) has been given a consensus rating of “Hold” by the twelve analysts that are presently covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating, four have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating on the company. The average 12 month target price among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is C$36.23.

BCE has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. BMO Capital Markets dropped their price target on BCE from C$51.00 to C$35.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, August 5th. Desjardins boosted their target price on BCE from C$41.00 to C$42.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 7th. CIBC upped their price target on shares of BCE from C$36.00 to C$37.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 15th. Royal Bank Of Canada upgraded BCE from a “sector perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from C$35.00 to C$47.00 in a research note on Wednesday, October 15th. Finally, Scotiabank upped their price target on shares of BCE from C$39.50 to C$41.50 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, September 8th.

BCE Stock Up 0.5%

TSE BCE opened at C$32.92 on Monday. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of C$32.60 and a 200-day moving average price of C$32.29. BCE has a one year low of C$28.73 and a one year high of C$38.59. 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$30.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.94, a P/E/G ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.52.

BCE (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 6th. The company reported C$0.79 EPS for the quarter. BCE had a net margin of 1.10% and a return on equity of 1.39%. The firm had revenue of C$6.05 billion during the quarter. As a group, equities analysts predict that BCE will post 3.1120864 EPS for the current fiscal year.

BCE Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 15th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, October 15th were given a dividend of $0.4375 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, September 15th. This represents a $1.75 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.3%. BCE’s dividend payout ratio is currently 43.09%.

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.