Brokerages Set TELUS Co. (TSE:T) PT at C$21.79

Shares of TELUS Co. (TSE:T) (NYSE:TU) have been given an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by the eleven ratings firms that are currently covering the stock, Marketbeat reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, three have issued a hold recommendation, six have given a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 12-month price objective among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is C$21.79.

Several equities analysts have commented on the company. Desjardins set a C$23.00 price target on TELUS and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 12th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of TELUS from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from C$22.00 to C$19.00 in a report on Tuesday, November 18th. CIBC lifted their target price on shares of TELUS from C$24.00 to C$25.00 in a report on Friday, October 17th. TD Securities cut their target price on shares of TELUS from C$26.00 to C$25.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, December 15th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets downgraded TELUS from an “outperform” rating to a “hold” rating and lowered their price target for the company from C$23.00 to C$19.00 in a research report on Thursday, December 11th.

TELUS Price Performance

TSE T opened at C$18.82 on Friday. TELUS has a fifty-two week low of C$17.26 and a fifty-two week high of C$23.29. The stock’s 50-day moving average is C$18.24 and its two-hundred day moving average is C$20.56. The firm has a market cap of C$29.19 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.13, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.65 and a beta of 0.85. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 183.41, a current ratio of 0.69 and a quick ratio of 0.52.

TELUS (TSE:T) (NYSE:TU) last released its quarterly earnings results on Friday, November 7th. The company reported C$0.24 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. TELUS had a return on equity of 5.80% and a net margin of 4.62%.The company had revenue of C$5.07 billion during the quarter. On average, analysts anticipate that TELUS will post 1.2267985 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other TELUS news, Director David Lawrence Mowat acquired 3,000 shares of TELUS stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 23rd. The stock was bought at an average cost of C$17.37 per share, with a total value of C$52,110.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 14,486 shares of the company’s stock, valued at C$251,621.82. The trade was a 26.12% increase in their ownership of the stock. Also, Director Darren Entwistle bought 56,200 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 22nd. The shares were bought at an average cost of C$17.33 per share, for a total transaction of C$973,946.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 1,132,190 shares of the company’s stock, valued at C$19,620,852.70. This trade represents a 5.22% increase in their position. Over the last quarter, insiders bought 258,245 shares of company stock worth $4,486,022. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

About TELUS

Telus is one of the Big Three wireless service providers in Canada, with its 9 million mobile phone subscribers nationwide constituting about 30% of the total market. It is the incumbent local exchange carrier in the western Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, where it provides internet, television, and landline phone services. It also has a small wireline presence in eastern Quebec. In recent years Telus has moved to bring fiber to the home over most of its wireline footprint as it upgrades its legacy copper network, leaving it able to compete on more equal footing with cable providers.