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

BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) has been assigned a consensus rating of “Hold” from the eleven analysts that are presently covering the firm, Marketbeat reports. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have given a hold rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. The average twelve-month target price among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is C$37.17.

BCE has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Barclays lowered shares of BCE from an “equal weight” rating to an “underperform” rating and decreased their price objective for the company from C$41.00 to C$30.00 in a report on Thursday, January 30th. TD Securities boosted their price target on BCE from C$31.00 to C$33.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. National Bankshares raised their price objective on BCE from C$35.00 to C$36.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Desjardins upped their target price on BCE from C$36.00 to C$39.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, May 9th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group upped their target price on BCE from C$31.50 to C$32.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, May 9th.

BCE Stock Down 1.2%

TSE:BCE opened at C$29.79 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of C$26.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 99.94, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.48. BCE has a twelve month low of C$28.73 and a twelve month high of C$49.13. The company has a current ratio of 0.62, a quick ratio of 0.43 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 226.73. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of C$30.95 and a 200-day simple moving average of C$33.70.

BCE Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, April 15th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, April 15th were given a dividend of $0.9975 per share. This represents a $3.99 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 13.39%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, March 14th. BCE’s payout ratio is 1,338.57%.

BCE Company Profile

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.