BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) Receives C$40.50 Average PT from Brokerages

Shares of BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) have earned a consensus recommendation of “Reduce” from the twelve research firms that are presently covering the firm, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, nine have given a hold recommendation and one has given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year price target among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is C$40.50.

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on BCE shares. Scotiabank dropped their target price on shares of BCE from C$42.00 to C$40.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, February 7th. National Bankshares boosted their price objective on BCE from C$35.00 to C$36.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their target price on BCE from C$45.00 to C$41.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered BCE from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and dropped their price target for the company from C$35.00 to C$29.00 in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Finally, Barclays downgraded shares of BCE from an “equal weight” rating to an “underperform” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from C$41.00 to C$30.00 in a research report on Thursday, January 30th.

BCE Stock Performance

BCE stock opened at C$32.87 on Wednesday. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is C$33.84. The company has a current ratio of 0.62, a quick ratio of 0.43 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 226.73. BCE has a 52-week low of C$31.43 and a 52-week high of C$49.13. The company has a market cap of C$29.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 110.27, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.48.

BCE Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared 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. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 14th. This represents a $3.99 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 12.14%. BCE’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 1,338.57%.

About BCE

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.