BCE (TSE:BCE) Price Target Lowered to C$39.50 at Scotiabank

BCE (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) had its price target reduced by Scotiabank from C$40.00 to C$39.50 in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday,BayStreet.CA reports. Scotiabank currently has a sector perform rating on the stock.

A number of other brokerages have also issued reports on BCE. National Bank Financial upgraded BCE from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 3rd. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their target price on BCE from C$39.00 to C$37.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, April 9th. Barclays lowered BCE from an “equal weight” rating to an “underperform” rating and dropped their target price for the company from C$41.00 to C$30.00 in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Canaccord Genuity Group reduced their price target on shares of BCE from C$33.50 to C$31.50 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, April 7th. Finally, TD Securities upped their price objective on shares of BCE from C$31.00 to C$33.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have given a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of C$38.77.

BCE Trading Up 1.1 %

TSE BCE opened at C$29.99 on Wednesday. BCE has a 12-month low of C$28.73 and a 12-month high of C$49.13. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of C$32.82 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of C$36.24. The company has a current ratio of 0.62, a quick ratio of 0.43 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 226.73. The stock has a market cap of C$27.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 100.61, a P/E/G ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.48.

BCE Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, April 15th. Investors of record on Tuesday, April 15th were given a dividend of $0.9975 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, March 14th. This represents a $3.99 annualized dividend and a yield of 13.30%. BCE’s dividend payout ratio is presently 1,338.57%.

BCE Company Profile

BCE is both a wireless and internet service provider, offering wireless, broadband, television, and landline phone services in Canada. It is one of the big three national wireless carriers, with its roughly 10 million customers constituting about 30% of the market. It is also the ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrierthe legacy telephone provider) throughout much of the eastern half of Canada, including in the most populous Canadian provincesOntario and Quebec.