Balentine LLC Buys 2,176 Shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Balentine LLC increased its stake in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 18.8% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 13,737 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after buying an additional 2,176 shares during the period. Balentine LLC’s holdings in TELUS were worth $246,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of TU. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of TELUS during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $82,775,000. Quadrature Capital Ltd bought a new stake in shares of TELUS during the third quarter valued at approximately $28,436,000. Scotia Capital Inc. increased its position in shares of TELUS by 10.2% during the third quarter. Scotia Capital Inc. now owns 16,675,010 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $272,179,000 after acquiring an additional 1,542,942 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. increased its position in shares of TELUS by 14.1% during the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 11,374,743 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $185,863,000 after acquiring an additional 1,409,188 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Toronto Dominion Bank increased its position in shares of TELUS by 7.6% during the third quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 15,971,196 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $260,969,000 after acquiring an additional 1,126,322 shares in the last quarter. 49.40% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently weighed in on TU. Scotiabank reissued a “sector perform” rating and set a $26.00 price target (down previously from $28.00) on shares of TELUS in a research report on Monday, March 25th. BMO Capital Markets dropped their target price on shares of TELUS from $27.00 to $26.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, February 12th. Finally, StockNews.com cut shares of TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $27.72.

TELUS Trading Down 1.0 %

Shares of TELUS stock opened at $16.37 on Friday. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $16.19 and its 200-day simple moving average is $17.24. The stock has a market capitalization of $24.16 billion, a PE ratio of 41.98, a P/E/G ratio of 2.40 and a beta of 0.71. TELUS Co. has a 1-year low of $15.35 and a 1-year high of $19.91. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.42, a current ratio of 0.75 and a quick ratio of 0.70.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 10th will be paid a dividend of $0.282 per share. This represents a $1.13 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.89%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 10th. This is a boost from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 284.62%.

About TELUS

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.