BCE (TSE:BCE) Upgraded at Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of BCE (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) from an underweight rating to an equal weight rating in a research note published on Tuesday,BayStreet.CA reports. They currently have C$35.00 price objective on the stock, up from their prior price objective of C$31.00.

Several other brokerages also recently commented on BCE. Scotiabank cut their target price on BCE from C$41.00 to C$39.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, July 7th. TD upgraded BCE from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a C$37.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Thursday, July 2nd. Desjardins set a C$43.50 price target on shares of BCE and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 15th. Canaccord Genuity Group cut their price objective on shares of BCE from C$35.00 to C$33.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, July 10th. Finally, TD Securities upgraded shares of BCE from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have issued a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, BCE has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of C$37.29.

BCE Trading Down 1.0%

TSE:BCE opened at C$29.91 on Tuesday. BCE has a 1 year low of C$29.66 and a 1 year high of C$36.25. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is C$32.40 and its two-hundred day moving average price is C$33.57. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 183.90, a current ratio of 0.66 and a quick ratio of 0.43. The company has a market cap of C$27.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.42, a P/E/G ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.29.

BCE (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 7th. The company reported C$0.63 earnings per share for the quarter. BCE had a return on equity of 29.69% and a net margin of 26.07%.The company had revenue of C$6.17 billion during the quarter. As a group, analysts expect that BCE will post 3.1120864 EPS for the current year.

BCE Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 15th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, July 15th were paid a $0.4375 dividend. This represents a $1.75 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.9%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, June 15th. BCE’s dividend payout ratio is currently 25.85%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other BCE news, insider Thierry Chaumont sold 4,110 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of C$33.59, for a total value of C$138,054.90. Also, insider Sean Cohan sold 3,645 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of C$33.48, for a total value of C$122,034.60. Insiders have sold 11,255 shares of company stock valued at $376,464 over the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.