Analysts Set BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) Target Price at C$37.04

Shares of BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) have been given a consensus recommendation of “Hold” by the ten research firms that are covering the firm, MarketBeat.com reports. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, five have assigned a hold recommendation, one has given a buy recommendation and two have issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month price target among analysts that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is C$37.04.

BCE has been the topic of several recent research reports. National Bank Financial upgraded BCE from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 3rd. Desjardins increased their target price on BCE from C$36.00 to C$39.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, May 9th. National Bankshares set a C$35.00 price objective on BCE and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, June 6th. Scotiabank upgraded BCE from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating and set a C$39.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Monday, June 2nd. Finally, UBS Group lowered their price objective on BCE from C$34.00 to C$32.00 in a research report on Wednesday, May 21st.

BCE Trading Down 0.8%

TSE:BCE opened at C$31.01 on Monday. The company has a market cap of C$28.09 billion, a P/E ratio of 104.03, a P/E/G ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.48. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is C$30.14 and its two-hundred day moving average price is C$32.65. BCE has a 1 year low of C$28.73 and a 1 year high of C$49.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 226.73, a current ratio of 0.62 and a quick ratio of 0.43.

BCE Cuts Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 15th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, July 15th will be given a dividend of $0.4375 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, June 16th. This represents a $1.75 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.64%. BCE’s payout ratio is 1,338.57%.

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.