TELUS Corporation (NYSE:TU) Receives Consensus Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

TELUS Corporation (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) has earned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the twelve brokerages that are covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, five have issued a hold recommendation, five have assigned a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month price target among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $18.1667.

Several brokerages recently weighed in on TU. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of TELUS in a research report on Monday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reissued an “underweight” rating and set a $19.00 price target (down from $22.00) on shares of TELUS in a research note on Tuesday, November 18th. Canaccord Genuity Group upgraded TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday. Barclays dropped their price objective on shares of TELUS from $15.00 to $14.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, November 10th. Finally, Citigroup upgraded shares of TELUS to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday.

TELUS Trading Up 0.6%

Shares of TELUS stock opened at $13.36 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.71, a current ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.47. TELUS has a 12-month low of $12.80 and a 12-month high of $16.74. The company has a market capitalization of $20.51 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.30, a PEG ratio of 6.87 and a beta of 0.66. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $14.57 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $15.64.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last issued its earnings results on Friday, November 7th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.17 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.19 by ($0.02). The firm had revenue of $3.67 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.77 billion. TELUS had a net margin of 5.71% and a return on equity of 8.76%. TELUS’s quarterly revenue was up .1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.28 earnings per share. On average, analysts forecast that TELUS will post 0.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, December 11th will be paid a $0.4184 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, December 11th. This is a positive change from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.30. This represents a $1.67 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 12.5%. TELUS’s payout ratio is currently 220.00%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of TELUS by 20.8% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,529,471 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $76,335,000 after acquiring an additional 780,607 shares during the period. Scotia Capital Inc. lifted its position in TELUS by 1.6% in the 2nd quarter. Scotia Capital Inc. now owns 18,842,084 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $302,519,000 after acquiring an additional 288,532 shares in the last quarter. Picton Mahoney Asset Management purchased a new position in shares of TELUS during the second quarter valued at approximately $51,091,000. Prudential PLC purchased a new position in TELUS during the 2nd quarter worth $531,000. Finally, SG Americas Securities LLC bought a new stake in TELUS in the 2nd quarter worth about $457,000. 49.40% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.