BCE (TSE:BCE) Stock Gets Price Target Trim from Desjardins

BCE (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) had its price target trimmed by Desjardins from C$43.00 to C$41.00 in a report issued on Wednesday morning,BayStreet reports. The brokerage currently has a buy rating on the stock.

BCE has been the topic of several other reports. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of BCE from an “underweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and boosted their price target for the stock from C$31.00 to C$35.00 in a research report on Tuesday, July 21st. Scotia lifted their price objective on shares of BCE from C$39.00 to C$40.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, August 7th. Scotiabank dropped their target price on shares of BCE from C$41.00 to C$39.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, July 7th. TD Securities upgraded shares of BCE from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group cut their target price on shares of BCE from C$35.00 to C$33.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, July 10th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, BCE has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of C$37.38.

BCE Stock Performance

BCE opened at C$26.80 on Wednesday. BCE has a 1-year low of C$26.66 and a 1-year high of C$36.25. The company has a market capitalization of C$24.99 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 3.98, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.37. The business has a 50 day moving average price of C$31.22 and a two-hundred day moving average price of C$32.18. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 175.06, a current ratio of 0.73 and a quick ratio of 0.43.

BCE (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 6th. The company reported C$0.65 earnings per share for the quarter. The business had revenue of C$6.18 billion during the quarter. BCE had a return on equity of 27.73% and a net margin of 25.89%. Research analysts predict that BCE will post 3.11 EPS for the current fiscal year.

BCE Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 15th will be paid a $0.4375 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 15th. This represents a $1.75 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.5%. BCE’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 25.96%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director Louis Vachon acquired 10,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, September 18th. The shares were purchased at an average price of C$30.63 per share, for a total transaction of C$306,300.00. Following the acquisition, the director owned 100,000 shares in the company, valued at approximately C$3,063,000. This represents a 11.11% increase in their ownership of the stock. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

BCE Company Profile

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.