BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) Receives Average Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) has earned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the thirteen ratings firms that are currently covering the company, Marketbeat reports. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, three have assigned a hold recommendation, six have assigned a buy recommendation and two have assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price target among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is C$36.41.

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Royal Bank Of Canada upgraded shares of BCE from a “sector perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their price target for the company from C$35.00 to C$47.00 in a research note on Wednesday, October 15th. CIBC upgraded shares of BCE from a “neutral” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 9th. BMO Capital Markets upgraded shares of BCE from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a C$37.00 price target for the company in a report on Thursday, December 11th. Desjardins increased their price target on BCE from C$41.00 to C$42.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 7th. Finally, TD Securities reduced their price objective on BCE from C$39.00 to C$38.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 7th.

BCE Trading Up 1.0%

Shares of BCE opened at C$31.44 on Friday. 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 52-week low of C$28.73 and a 52-week high of C$36.59. The firm has a market cap of C$29.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.72, a PEG ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.51. The business’s fifty day moving average is C$32.39 and its 200-day moving average is C$32.54.

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

BCE Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 15th will be issued a dividend of $0.4375 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, December 15th. This represents a $1.75 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.6%. BCE’s payout ratio is presently 43.09%.

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.