BCE (TSE:BCE) Stock Price Down 3% After Analyst Downgrade

BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) traded down 3% on Tuesday after Canaccord Genuity Group lowered their price target on the stock from C$33.50 to C$31.50. Canaccord Genuity Group currently has a hold rating on the stock. BCE traded as low as C$30.39 and last traded at C$30.53. 2,055,749 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 47% from the average session volume of 3,911,561 shares. The stock had previously closed at C$31.49.

BCE has been the subject of a number of other reports. Barclays cut BCE from an “equal weight” rating to an “underperform” rating and dropped their price target for the company from C$41.00 to C$30.00 in a report on Thursday, January 30th. National Bank Financial raised BCE from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, April 3rd. TD Securities upped their price target on shares of BCE from C$31.00 to C$33.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price objective on shares of BCE from C$45.00 to C$41.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Finally, National Bankshares upped their target price on shares of BCE from C$35.00 to C$36.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of C$39.18.

BCE Stock Down 5.5 %

The business’s fifty day simple moving average is C$33.47 and its 200 day simple moving average is C$37.04. The stock has a market cap of C$26.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 99.87, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.48. The company has a current ratio of 0.62, a quick ratio of 0.43 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 226.73.

BCE Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 15th. Investors of record on Tuesday, April 15th will be paid a dividend of $0.9975 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 14th. This represents a $3.99 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 13.40%. BCE’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 1,338.57%.

About BCE

BCE is both a wireless and internet service provider, offering wireless, broadband, television, and landline phone services in Canada. It is one of the big three national wireless carriers, with its roughly 10 million customers constituting about 30% of the market. It is also the ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrierthe legacy telephone provider) throughout much of the eastern half of Canada, including in the most populous Canadian provincesOntario and Quebec.