Vest Financial LLC Has $872,000 Holdings in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Vest Financial LLC lifted its stake in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 43.3% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 64,340 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 19,430 shares during the quarter. Vest Financial LLC’s holdings in TELUS were worth $872,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the stock. National Bank of Canada FI grew its holdings in shares of TELUS by 24.2% during the third quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 26,160,789 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $438,922,000 after buying an additional 5,094,269 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its stake in shares of TELUS by 192.0% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,326,632 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $22,257,000 after acquiring an additional 872,235 shares in the last quarter. Centre Asset Management LLC bought a new position in shares of TELUS during the 4th quarter worth approximately $6,946,000. Duff & Phelps Investment Management Co. raised its holdings in shares of TELUS by 13.5% in the third quarter. Duff & Phelps Investment Management Co. now owns 2,666,500 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $44,785,000 after purchasing an additional 317,000 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Nicola Wealth Management LTD. lifted its position in shares of TELUS by 35.7% in the third quarter. Nicola Wealth Management LTD. now owns 1,060,819 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $17,801,000 after purchasing an additional 279,000 shares in the last quarter. 49.40% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

TELUS Stock Performance

Shares of TU opened at $14.40 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $21.60 billion, a PE ratio of 30.64, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.85 and a beta of 0.75. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $14.30 and a 200-day moving average of $15.48. TELUS Co. has a one year low of $13.24 and a one year high of $18.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50, a current ratio of 0.69 and a quick ratio of 0.63.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Friday, November 8th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.28 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.17 by $0.11. The business had revenue of $5.10 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.69 billion. TELUS had a return on equity of 8.80% and a net margin of 4.56%. TELUS’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.19 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that TELUS Co. will post 0.72 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts recently weighed in on TU shares. Scotiabank raised shares of TELUS from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 28th. Morgan Stanley initiated coverage on TELUS in a report on Monday, December 16th. They issued an “equal weight” rating for the company. National Bank Financial lowered TELUS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 21st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $26.00.

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.