TELUS Corporation (NYSE:TU) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Hold” from Analysts

Shares of TELUS Corporation (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) have earned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the eleven ratings firms that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 1 year price objective among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $16.3333.

Several research firms have recently weighed in on TU. Weiss Ratings downgraded TELUS from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research report on Monday, April 20th. TD Securities upgraded TELUS from a “buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 28th. Canaccord Genuity Group lowered TELUS from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 9th. Wall Street Zen upgraded TELUS from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, May 9th. Finally, Bank of America upgraded TELUS from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the company from $14.50 to $16.00 in a research note on Tuesday, March 10th.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On TELUS

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. TD Asset Management Inc increased its stake in shares of TELUS by 1.5% during the third quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 36,863,219 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $580,740,000 after buying an additional 550,574 shares during the period. Mackenzie Financial Corp increased its stake in shares of TELUS by 3.0% during the fourth quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 33,318,398 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $433,838,000 after buying an additional 955,779 shares during the period. FIL Ltd increased its stake in shares of TELUS by 112.9% during the fourth quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 30,300,204 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $399,352,000 after buying an additional 16,066,539 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of TELUS by 3.2% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 29,470,046 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $388,415,000 after buying an additional 916,459 shares during the period. Finally, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company grew its stake in TELUS by 21.5% in the first quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 24,075,122 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $309,159,000 after purchasing an additional 4,258,557 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

TELUS Stock Down 2.8%

NYSE:TU opened at $10.79 on Tuesday. TELUS has a twelve month low of $10.75 and a twelve month high of $16.74. The company has a market cap of $16.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.51, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 10.91 and a beta of 0.61. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $12.17 and a 200-day simple moving average of $12.88. The company has a current ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 0.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.59.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last released its earnings results on Friday, May 8th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.17 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.16 by $0.01. TELUS had a return on equity of 8.29% and a net margin of 4.54%.The business had revenue of $3.60 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.64 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.26 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down .6% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts anticipate that TELUS will post 0.71 EPS for the current year.

TELUS Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, June 10th will be paid a dividend of $0.4184 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, June 10th. This represents a $1.67 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 15.5%. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 275.00%.

About TELUS

TELUS Corporation (NYSE: TU) is a Canadian telecommunications and technology company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. It delivers a broad portfolio of consumer and business communications services across Canada, including mobile wireless, fixed-line voice, broadband internet, and television. TELUS also provides a range of enterprise services such as cloud and IT solutions, managed network services, cybersecurity and Internet of Things (IoT) offerings for business customers.

Beyond core connectivity, TELUS has expanded into health and digital services.