Scotiabank Lowers TELUS (TSE:T) to Sector Perform

Scotiabank cut shares of TELUS (TSE:T) (NYSE:TU) from an outperform rating to a sector perform rating in a research note released on Monday morning, BayStreet.CA reports. The brokerage currently has C$26.00 price objective on the stock, down from their previous price objective of C$28.00.

A number of other equities analysts have also recently issued reports on T. CIBC increased their price objective on shares of TELUS from C$26.00 to C$28.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Monday, December 18th. BMO Capital Markets lowered their target price on shares of TELUS from C$27.00 to C$26.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a report on Monday, February 12th. National Bankshares lowered their target price on shares of TELUS from C$27.00 to C$26.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a report on Monday. Veritas Investment Research lowered shares of TELUS from a buy rating to a reduce rating and set a C$27.00 target price on the stock. in a report on Friday, January 26th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on shares of TELUS from C$26.00 to C$27.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Monday, February 12th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, TELUS currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of C$27.36.

TELUS Stock Performance

Shares of T opened at C$21.67 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 0.52 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 159.88. The stock has a market capitalization of C$32.07 billion, a P/E ratio of 38.02, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 0.70. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is C$23.50 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is C$23.51. TELUS has a 12 month low of C$21.16 and a 12 month high of C$28.95.

TELUS (TSE:T) (NYSE:TU) last released its quarterly earnings data on Friday, February 9th. The company reported C$0.24 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of C$0.23 by C$0.01. The company had revenue of C$5.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of C$5.24 billion. TELUS had a net margin of 4.20% and a return on equity of 4.96%. As a group, analysts predict that TELUS will post 1 EPS for the current year.

TELUS Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, April 1st. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 11th will be paid a $0.376 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 8th. This represents a $1.50 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.94%. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 263.16%.

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.