TELUS (NYSE:TU) Posts Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.02 EPS

TELUS (NYSE:TU - Get Free Report) TSE: T released its earnings results on Thursday. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.16 by $0.02, Zacks reports. TELUS had a net margin of 4.56% and a return on equity of 8.80%. The company had revenue of $3.85 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.64 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.10 EPS.

TELUS Stock Performance

TELUS stock traded up $0.14 during midday trading on Monday, hitting $15.39. 3,463,820 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,797,593. TELUS has a 12-month low of $13.24 and a 12-month high of $18.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50, a quick ratio of 0.63 and a current ratio of 0.69. The stock has a market cap of $23.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.85 and a beta of 0.75. The firm's 50 day simple moving average is $14.21 and its 200 day simple moving average is $15.44.

TELUS Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 1st. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, March 11th will be given a dividend of $0.2829 per share. This represents a $1.13 annualized dividend and a yield of 7.35%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, March 11th. TELUS's payout ratio is currently 242.56%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on TU shares. Morgan Stanley initiated coverage on shares of TELUS in a report on Monday, December 16th. They issued an "equal weight" rating on the stock. Scotiabank raised shares of TELUS from a "sector perform" rating to a "sector outperform" rating in a research report on Monday, October 28th. StockNews.com raised shares of TELUS from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Monday, February 10th. Finally, National Bank Financial downgraded shares of TELUS from an "outperform" rating to a "sector perform" rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $26.00.

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.