BCE (TSE:BCE) Price Target Lowered to C$37.00 at Royal Bank of Canada

BCE (TSE:BCE - Free Report) NYSE: BCE had its price objective decreased by Royal Bank of Canada from C$39.00 to C$37.00 in a research note published on Wednesday morning,BayStreet.CA reports. Royal Bank of Canada currently has a sector perform rating on the stock.

A number of other equities analysts have also recently weighed in on BCE. Barclays cut BCE from an "equal weight" rating to an "underperform" rating and reduced their price target for the stock from C$41.00 to C$30.00 in a report on Thursday, January 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on BCE from C$29.00 to C$28.00 and set an "underweight" rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 3rd. Scotiabank cut their price target on shares of BCE from C$42.00 to C$40.00 and set a "sector perform" rating for the company in a report on Friday, February 7th. TD Securities increased 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. Finally, National Bankshares upped their price target on shares of BCE from C$35.00 to C$36.00 and gave the stock a "sector perform" rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, BCE currently has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus price target of C$38.82.

BCE Stock Performance

BCE stock traded up C$0.42 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting C$30.03. 8,292,721 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 4,128,533. BCE has a 1-year low of C$28.73 and a 1-year high of C$49.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 226.73, a current ratio of 0.62 and a quick ratio of 0.43. The stock's fifty day simple moving average is C$33.05 and its 200-day simple moving average is C$36.60. The firm has a market cap of C$27.20 billion, a P/E ratio of 100.75, a PEG ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.48.

BCE Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 15th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, April 15th will be paid a dividend of $0.9975 per share. This represents a $3.99 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 13.29%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 14th. BCE's dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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.