BCE (TSE:BCE) Upgraded by Barclays to Hold Rating

Barclays upgraded shares of BCE (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) from a strong sell rating to a hold rating in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday,Zacks.com reports.

Several other brokerages have also issued reports on BCE. TD Securities decreased their price objective on BCE from C$39.00 to C$38.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, November 7th. Royal Bank Of Canada upgraded BCE from a “sector perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and lifted their target price for the stock from C$35.00 to C$47.00 in a research note on Wednesday, October 15th. Cibc Captl Mkts upgraded BCE from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 9th. BMO Capital Markets upgraded BCE from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a C$37.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Thursday, December 11th. Finally, CIBC raised BCE from a “neutral” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 9th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have assigned a Buy rating, three have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of C$36.20.

BCE Trading Down 0.9%

Shares of TSE BCE traded down C$0.31 during midday trading on Tuesday, hitting C$34.36. The stock had a trading volume of 864,445 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,129,476. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is C$32.64 and its 200 day simple moving average is C$32.95. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 226.73, a current ratio of 0.62 and a quick ratio of 0.43. The firm has a market cap of C$32.04 billion, a P/E ratio of 5.16, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.48. BCE has a fifty-two week low of C$28.73 and a fifty-two week high of C$36.59.

BCE (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) last released its earnings results on Thursday, November 6th. The company reported C$0.79 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. The company had revenue of C$6.05 billion for the quarter. BCE had a net margin of 1.10% and a return on equity of 1.39%. Research analysts anticipate that BCE will post 3.1120864 EPS for the current year.

BCE Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 15th were issued a $0.4375 dividend. This represents a $1.75 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 15th. BCE’s dividend payout ratio is currently 43.09%.

BCE Company Profile

Bell Media is Canada’s leading media and entertainment company with a portfolio of assets in premium video, audio, out-of-home advertising, and digital media. This includes Canada’s most-watched television network, CTV; the largest Canadian-owned video streamer, Crave, with a premium add-on to include STARZ; a powerful suite of specialty channels; the most-trusted news brand, CTV News; Canada’s cross-platform sports leaders, TSN and RDS; leading out-of-home advertising network, Astral; Québec’s fast-growing conventional French-language network, Noovo; the country’s leading radio and podcast app, iHeartRadio Canada; and a range of award-winning original productions, brands, and services.