BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) Stock Has Consensus Price Target of C$37.69

Shares of BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) have received a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the thirteen research firms that are presently covering the company, Marketbeat reports. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, eight have assigned a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average 1-year target price among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is C$37.69.

A number of research analysts recently commented on BCE shares. Royal Bank Of Canada lowered their price objective on BCE from C$39.00 to C$36.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, July 10th. TD Securities upgraded BCE from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. Scotia upped their target price on BCE from C$39.00 to C$40.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, August 7th. TD increased their target price on BCE from C$37.00 to C$40.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 15th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group decreased their price target on shares of BCE from C$35.00 to C$33.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, July 10th.

BCE Price Performance

BCE opened at C$28.62 on Friday. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of C$31.59 and a 200 day simple moving average of C$32.56. The firm has a market cap of C$26.69 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.25, a PEG ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.37. BCE has a twelve month low of C$28.57 and a twelve month high of C$36.25. The company has a current ratio of 0.73, a quick ratio of 0.43 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 175.06.

BCE (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 6th. The company reported C$0.65 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. BCE had a net margin of 25.89% and a return on equity of 27.73%. The firm had revenue of C$6.18 billion for the quarter. Equities research analysts expect that BCE will post 3.1120864 EPS for the current fiscal year.

BCE Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 15th will be issued a dividend of $0.4375 per share. This represents a $1.75 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 15th. BCE’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 25.96%.

Insider Activity at BCE

In other news, Director Louis Vachon bought 10,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 18th. The stock was bought at an average price of C$30.63 per share, for a total transaction of C$306,300.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 100,000 shares in the company, valued at C$3,063,000. The trade was a 11.11% increase in their ownership of the stock. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.