BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) Receives C$36.25 Consensus PT from Analysts

BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) has received an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the thirteen research firms that are covering the firm, Marketbeat.com reports. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating, seven have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. The average 1-year target price among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is C$36.20.

BCE has been the topic of a number of research reports. CIBC raised shares of BCE from a “neutral” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 9th. Desjardins reduced their price objective on BCE from C$42.00 to C$41.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, January 12th. Royal Bank Of Canada raised BCE from a “sector perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from C$35.00 to C$47.00 in a research note on Wednesday, October 15th. Scotiabank cut their target price on BCE from C$40.75 to C$40.25 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, Cibc Captl Mkts upgraded BCE from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 9th.

BCE Price Performance

BCE stock opened at C$34.06 on Tuesday. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of C$32.50 and a 200-day simple moving average of C$32.90. The firm has a market capitalization of C$31.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 5.11, a PEG ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.48. The company has a quick ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 0.62 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 226.73. BCE has a 52-week low of C$28.73 and a 52-week high of C$36.59.

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

BCE Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 15th were paid a dividend of $0.4375 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 15th. This represents a $1.75 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.1%. BCE’s payout ratio is 43.09%.

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.