Stock Traders Purchase High Volume of Call Options on TELUS (NYSE:TU)

TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU - Get Free Report) TSE: T was the target of unusually large options trading activity on Friday. Investors acquired 2,125 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of 415% compared to the typical daily volume of 413 call options.

Institutional Trading of TELUS

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Sanctuary Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of TELUS during the second quarter worth approximately $680,000. Fiera Capital Corp grew its position in shares of TELUS by 9.9% during the second quarter. Fiera Capital Corp now owns 16,670,713 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock worth $252,468,000 after buying an additional 1,501,742 shares in the last quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of TELUS during the second quarter worth approximately $163,000. Ninepoint Partners LP grew its position in shares of TELUS by 10.0% during the second quarter. Ninepoint Partners LP now owns 195,895 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock worth $2,966,000 after buying an additional 17,864 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Lighthouse Investment Partners LLC grew its position in shares of TELUS by 55.1% during the second quarter. Lighthouse Investment Partners LLC now owns 17,991 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock worth $272,000 after buying an additional 6,389 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 49.40% of the company's stock.

TELUS Trading Down 0.2 %

NYSE TU traded down $0.04 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $16.94. The company's stock had a trading volume of 2,574,246 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,278,782. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.46, a current ratio of 0.66 and a quick ratio of 0.61. TELUS has a 52-week low of $14.63 and a 52-week high of $19.14. The stock's fifty day simple moving average is $16.07 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $16.19. The firm has a market capitalization of $25.10 billion, a P/E ratio of 43.51, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.52 and a beta of 0.74.

TELUS (NYSE:TU - Get Free Report) TSE: T last issued its quarterly earnings data on Friday, August 2nd. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.16 by $0.09. TELUS had a net margin of 3.87% and a return on equity of 8.50%. The company had revenue of $3.64 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.70 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.14 earnings per share. Research analysts expect that TELUS will post 0.73 EPS for the current year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, October 1st. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, September 10th will be given a $0.284 dividend. This is an increase from TELUS's previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 10th. This represents a $1.14 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.71%. TELUS's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 294.88%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on TU shares. Canaccord Genuity Group lowered shares of TELUS from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Tuesday, August 6th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of TELUS from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Friday, September 6th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $27.33.

TELUS Company Profile

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.