BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) Receives Consensus Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) has received a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the ten analysts that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat.com reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. The average 1-year target price among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is C$37.85.

BCE has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Desjardins cut their target price on BCE from C$41.00 to C$40.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, February 6th. Scotiabank cut their price objective on shares of BCE from C$40.25 to C$39.50 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 6th. TD Securities decreased their target price on shares of BCE from C$39.00 to C$38.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, November 7th. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce upgraded shares of BCE from a “neutral” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 9th. Finally, Barclays raised shares of BCE from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 27th.

BCE Price Performance

Shares of TSE BCE opened at C$35.01 on Friday. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of C$33.27 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of C$33.13. BCE has a fifty-two week low of C$28.73 and a fifty-two week high of C$36.59. The company has a market capitalization of C$32.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 5.16, a P/E/G ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.47. 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 (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 6th. The company reported C$0.79 EPS for the quarter. BCE had a return on equity of 1.39% and a net margin of 1.10%.The firm had revenue of C$6.05 billion for the quarter. Analysts expect that BCE will post 3.1120864 EPS for the current fiscal year.

BCE Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 15th were issued a $0.4375 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 15th. This represents a $1.75 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.0%. BCE’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 34.02%.

About BCE

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.