BCE (TSE:BCE) Lowered to “Hold” Rating by TD Securities

TD Securities cut shares of BCE (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report report published on Thursday morning,BayStreet.CA reports. They currently have C$37.00 price objective on the stock, down from their previous price objective of C$41.00.

A number of other brokerages have also recently commented on BCE. BMO Capital Markets upgraded shares of BCE from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a C$37.00 target price for the company in a research report on Thursday, December 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on shares of BCE from C$33.00 to C$37.00 in a report on Friday, February 6th. Scotiabank boosted their target price on BCE from C$39.50 to C$41.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 17th. Desjardins upped their price target on BCE from C$40.00 to C$42.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 17th. Finally, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce raised BCE from a “neutral” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 9th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have given a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of C$37.30.

BCE Trading Down 3.4%

BCE stock opened at C$34.06 on Thursday. BCE has a 12-month low of C$28.73 and a 12-month high of C$36.25. The business’s 50-day moving average is C$35.20 and its 200 day moving average is C$33.47. The company has a current ratio of 0.58, a quick ratio of 0.43 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 179.16. The stock has a market cap of C$31.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 5.02, a PEG ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.38.

BCE (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) last released its earnings results on Friday, March 6th. The company reported C$0.69 earnings per share for the quarter. BCE had a return on equity of 31.99% and a net margin of 26.40%.The business had revenue of C$6.40 billion for the quarter. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that BCE will post 3.1120864 EPS for the current fiscal year.

BCE Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 15th. Investors of record on Wednesday, April 15th will be given a dividend of $0.4375 per share. This represents a $1.75 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.1%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 16th. BCE’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 34.02%.

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.