TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) Receives $26.00 Average PT from Analysts

Shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU - Get Free Report) TSE: T have been assigned an average recommendation of "Hold" from the five brokerages that are presently covering the company, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating on the company. The average 1 year price target among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $26.00.

A number of research analysts have recently weighed in on TU shares. StockNews.com lowered TELUS from a "hold" rating to a "sell" rating in a report on Thursday, November 21st. Scotiabank upgraded TELUS from a "sector perform" rating to a "sector outperform" rating in a research note on Monday, October 28th. Finally, National Bank Financial downgraded shares of TELUS from an "outperform" rating to a "sector perform" rating in a report on Friday.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of TU. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board grew its position in shares of TELUS by 159.6% during the 3rd quarter. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board now owns 140,539 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock valued at $2,360,000 after acquiring an additional 86,393 shares during the period. FMR LLC grew its holdings in TELUS by 192.0% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,326,632 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock valued at $22,257,000 after purchasing an additional 872,235 shares during the period. Entropy Technologies LP bought a new position in TELUS during the third quarter valued at $945,000. Toronto Dominion Bank increased its position in TELUS by 5.4% in the second quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 12,472,610 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock worth $188,835,000 after buying an additional 636,845 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Nicola Wealth Management LTD. raised its stake in shares of TELUS by 35.7% in the third quarter. Nicola Wealth Management LTD. now owns 1,060,819 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock valued at $17,801,000 after buying an additional 279,000 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 49.40% of the company's stock.

TELUS Stock Down 1.4 %

TU stock traded down $0.20 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $14.55. 4,592,461 shares of the company's stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,364,978. TELUS has a 52 week low of $14.40 and a 52 week high of $18.68. The company has a market cap of $21.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.96, a P/E/G ratio of 2.19 and a beta of 0.73. The firm's fifty day moving average price is $15.70 and its 200-day moving average price is $15.97. The company has a quick ratio of 0.63, a current ratio of 0.69 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50.

TELUS (NYSE:TU - Get Free Report) TSE: T last posted its earnings results on Friday, November 8th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.28 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $5.10 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.69 billion. TELUS had a net margin of 4.56% and a return on equity of 8.80%. The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.19 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that TELUS will post 0.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 11th will be given a dividend of $0.297 per share. This represents a $1.19 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 8.16%. This is an increase from TELUS's previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, December 11th. TELUS's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 253.19%.

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.