Brokerages Set Sun Life Financial Inc. (TSE:SLF) Target Price at C$116.00

Shares of Sun Life Financial Inc. (TSE:SLF) (NYSE:SLF) have been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the fourteen analysts that are currently covering the company, MarketBeat reports. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, six have given a hold recommendation, six have assigned a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month price target among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is C$116.00.

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. Barclays lifted their price target on shares of Sun Life Financial from C$96.00 to C$98.00 in a report on Friday, August 7th. Desjardins increased their price objective on Sun Life Financial from C$120.00 to C$122.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, August 10th. Royal Bank Of Canada raised their target price on Sun Life Financial from C$98.00 to C$119.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Monday, August 10th. Scotia lifted their target price on Sun Life Financial from C$110.00 to C$118.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Monday, August 10th. Finally, National Bank Financial upped their price target on Sun Life Financial from C$108.00 to C$125.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 23rd.

Sun Life Financial Stock Up 1.5%

TSE:SLF opened at C$110.08 on Monday. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is C$112.74 and its 200 day simple moving average is C$101.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 34.34, a current ratio of 27.38 and a quick ratio of 84,866.00. Sun Life Financial has a one year low of C$79.36 and a one year high of C$118.99. The company has a market cap of C$61.28 billion, a PE ratio of 18.66, a P/E/G ratio of 1.33 and a beta of 0.80.

Sun Life Financial (TSE:SLF) (NYSE:SLF) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, August 6th. The financial services provider reported C$2.02 earnings per share for the quarter. The firm had revenue of C$9.05 billion for the quarter. Sun Life Financial had a net margin of 8.81% and a return on equity of 13.89%. On average, research analysts anticipate that Sun Life Financial will post 6.9230769 earnings per share for the current year.

Sun Life Financial Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 29th. Investors of record on Tuesday, September 29th will be paid a $0.96 dividend. This represents a $3.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.5%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, August 26th. Sun Life Financial’s payout ratio is currently 62.37%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Manjit Singh sold 188,312 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, June 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of C$103.20, for a total value of C$19,433,798.40. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 547 shares in the company, valued at C$56,450.40. This represents a 99.71% decrease in their ownership of the stock. 0.03% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About Sun Life Financial

Sun Life Financial is one of Canada’s Big Three life insurance companies along with Great-West Lifeco and Manulife. Sun Life provides insurance, retirement, and wealth-management services to individual and corporate customers in Canada, the United States, and Asia. It also owns MFS Investment Management, a Boston-based asset-management firm. Sun Life generates about a third of its profit from asset-management operations.