TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) Holdings Raised by First Affirmative Financial Network

First Affirmative Financial Network grew its position in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 14.1% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 37,826 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after buying an additional 4,682 shares during the quarter. First Affirmative Financial Network’s holdings in TELUS were worth $513,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. National Bank of Canada FI grew its position in TELUS by 24.2% during the 3rd quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 26,160,789 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $438,922,000 after purchasing an additional 5,094,269 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its holdings in shares of 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 buying an additional 872,235 shares in the last quarter. Centre Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in TELUS during the fourth quarter valued at $6,946,000. Duff & Phelps Investment Management Co. raised its position in TELUS by 13.5% during the third quarter. Duff & Phelps Investment Management Co. now owns 2,666,500 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $44,785,000 after buying an additional 317,000 shares during the period. Finally, Nicola Wealth Management LTD. lifted its stake in TELUS by 35.7% in the 3rd quarter. Nicola Wealth Management LTD. now owns 1,060,819 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $17,801,000 after acquiring an additional 279,000 shares in the last quarter. 49.40% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on TU shares. National Bank Financial downgraded TELUS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. Morgan Stanley started coverage on shares of TELUS in a research report on Monday, December 16th. They issued an “equal weight” rating for the company. Scotiabank upgraded shares of TELUS from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a report on Monday, October 28th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Thursday, November 21st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $26.00.

TELUS Stock Performance

Shares of TU opened at $14.44 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $21.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.71, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.69 and a beta of 0.74. The company’s fifty day moving average is $14.43 and its 200-day moving average is $15.55. 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 Co. has a 12 month low of $13.24 and a 12 month high of $18.24.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last posted its earnings results on Friday, November 8th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.28 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $5.10 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.69 billion. TELUS had a return on equity of 8.80% and a net margin of 4.56%. The business’s revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.19 earnings per share. Equities analysts expect that TELUS Co. will post 0.72 EPS for the current fiscal year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, December 11th were given a dividend of $0.297 per share. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 11th. This represents a $1.19 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 8.23%. This is a boost from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio is presently 242.56%.

TELUS 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.