Barclays Cuts TELUS (NYSE:TU) Price Target to $14.00

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) had its price objective trimmed by Barclays from $15.00 to $14.00 in a research note released on Monday morning,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an equal weight rating on the Wireless communications provider’s stock.

Several other research analysts have also recently weighed in on TU. Scotiabank reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of TELUS in a research report on Tuesday, July 15th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c-)” rating on shares of TELUS in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating and eight have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, TELUS currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $17.75.

TELUS Stock Down 0.7%

Shares of TU stock opened at $14.69 on Monday. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $15.40 and its 200 day moving average price is $15.86. TELUS has a 1-year low of $13.24 and a 1-year high of $16.74. The company has a market cap of $22.54 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.70, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 6.22 and a beta of 0.71. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 0.76 and a quick ratio of 0.81.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, November 7th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.17 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.19 by ($0.02). TELUS had a return on equity of 8.76% and a net margin of 5.71%.The business had revenue of $3.67 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.77 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.28 EPS. TELUS’s revenue was up .1% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts expect that TELUS will post 0.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, December 11th will be issued a dividend of $0.4184 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, December 11th. This represents a $1.67 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 11.4%. This is an increase from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.30. TELUS’s payout ratio is presently 220.00%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On TELUS

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in TU. Parvin Asset Management LLC purchased a new stake in TELUS in the 2nd quarter valued at $27,000. Farther Finance Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of TELUS by 35.0% during the 3rd quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 2,926 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $46,000 after acquiring an additional 759 shares during the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. grew its holdings in shares of TELUS by 26.1% in the second quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 3,227 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $52,000 after purchasing an additional 667 shares during the period. CWM LLC raised its stake in TELUS by 169.6% during the second quarter. CWM LLC now owns 3,658 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $59,000 after purchasing an additional 2,301 shares during the period. Finally, State of Wyoming acquired a new position in TELUS in the 2nd quarter valued at about $61,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

About TELUS

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.