Sun Life Financial Inc. (TSE:SLF) Receives Average Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

Sun Life Financial Inc. (TSE:SLF) (NYSE:SLF) has been given a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by the ten analysts that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat.com reports. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, seven have given a buy recommendation and one has given a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year price target among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is C$87.00.

A number of research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Scotiabank reduced their price objective on shares of Sun Life Financial from C$98.00 to C$94.00 in a research report on Friday, February 14th. Cormark upgraded shares of Sun Life Financial from a “hold” rating to a “moderate buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Barclays increased their price target on shares of Sun Life Financial from C$85.00 to C$87.00 in a research note on Friday, April 11th. National Bank Financial raised Sun Life Financial from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, National Bankshares decreased their target price on Sun Life Financial from C$95.00 to C$93.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 13th.

Sun Life Financial Price Performance

Shares of SLF stock opened at C$78.35 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 26.00, a quick ratio of 84,866.00 and a current ratio of 92.19. The firm has a market cap of C$44.75 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.82, a P/E/G ratio of 1.33 and a beta of 0.94. The business’s 50 day moving average price is C$79.75 and its 200-day moving average price is C$81.88. Sun Life Financial has a fifty-two week low of C$64.38 and a fifty-two week high of C$88.54.

Sun Life Financial Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 31st. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 31st were paid a $0.84 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, February 26th. This represents a $3.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.29%. Sun Life Financial’s dividend payout ratio is currently 48.87%.

About Sun Life Financial

Sun Life Financial is one of Canada’s Big Three life insurance companies along with Great-West Lifeco and Manulife. Sun Life provides insurance, retirement, and wealth-management services to individual and corporate customers in Canada, the United States, and Asia. It also owns MFS Investment Management, a Boston-based asset-management firm.