Desjardins Issues Pessimistic Forecast for BCE (TSE:BCE) Stock Price

BCE (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) had its price target reduced by Desjardins from C$42.00 to C$41.00 in a note issued to investors on Monday,BayStreet.CA reports. The brokerage presently has a “buy” rating on the stock. Desjardins’ price objective would suggest a potential upside of 24.02% from the company’s current price.

A number of other equities research analysts have also commented on BCE. BMO Capital Markets raised shares of BCE from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a C$37.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Thursday, December 11th. TD Securities cut their price objective on shares of BCE from C$39.00 to C$38.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, November 7th. Scotiabank cut their target price on shares of BCE from C$41.50 to C$40.75 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday. Royal Bank Of Canada upgraded BCE from a “sector perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from C$35.00 to C$47.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 15th. Finally, CIBC raised shares of BCE from a “neutral” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 9th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have issued a Buy rating, two have assigned a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of C$36.25.

BCE Stock Performance

BCE traded up C$0.04 on Monday, reaching C$33.06. The company had a trading volume of 1,026,716 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,554,195. The stock has a market cap of C$30.83 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.96, a P/E/G ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.48. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 226.73, a quick ratio of 0.43 and a current ratio of 0.62. BCE has a fifty-two week low of C$28.73 and a fifty-two week high of C$36.59. The company’s fifty day moving average is C$32.24 and its 200 day moving average is C$32.74.

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

About BCE

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.