TELUS (NYSE:TU) Rating Lowered to Sell at StockNews.com

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) was downgraded by equities researchers at StockNews.com from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report issued on Tuesday.

A number of other analysts also recently commented on TU. Scotiabank reiterated a “sector perform” rating and issued a $26.00 target price (down from $28.00) on shares of TELUS in a report on Monday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded TELUS from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 4th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets reduced their price objective on TELUS from $27.00 to $26.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, February 12th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $27.72.

TELUS Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE TU opened at $15.91 on Tuesday. TELUS has a 12-month low of $15.47 and a 12-month high of $21.34. The company has a market cap of $23.48 billion, a PE ratio of 37.00, a P/E/G ratio of 3.53 and a beta of 0.73. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $17.45 and a 200-day simple moving average of $17.37. The company has a current ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last announced its earnings results on Friday, February 9th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.18 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.01. TELUS had a return on equity of 7.81% and a net margin of 4.18%. The firm had revenue of $5.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $5.24 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.17 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts forecast that TELUS will post 0.78 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of TELUS

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. FMR LLC raised its stake in shares of TELUS by 15.4% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 489,969 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $8,001,000 after purchasing an additional 65,287 shares in the last quarter. Alberta Investment Management Corp increased its stake in shares of TELUS by 1.5% during the 3rd quarter. Alberta Investment Management Corp now owns 3,166,300 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $51,944,000 after purchasing an additional 46,000 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of TELUS by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 21,789,027 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $356,033,000 after purchasing an additional 387,561 shares in the last quarter. Marshall Wace LLP lifted its stake in shares of TELUS by 4,575.7% in the 2nd quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 1,150,224 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $22,383,000 after purchasing an additional 1,125,624 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Fiera Capital Corp raised its holdings in TELUS by 2.7% during the third quarter. Fiera Capital Corp now owns 14,354,382 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $235,054,000 after buying an additional 382,845 shares in the last quarter. 49.40% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

TELUS Company Profile

TELUS Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides a range of telecommunications and information technology products and services in Canada. It operates through Technology Solutions and Digitally-Led Customer Experiences segments. The Technology Solutions segment offers a range of telecommunications products and services; network services; healthcare services; mobile technologies equipment; data services, such as internet protocol; television; hosting, managed information technology, and cloud-based services; software, data management, and data analytics-driven smart food-chain and consumer goods technologies; home and business security; healthcare software and technology solutions; and voice and other telecommunications services, as well as mobile and fixed voice and data telecommunications services and products.