Bridgewater Associates LP Cuts Position in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Bridgewater Associates LP lowered its position in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 30.0% in the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 19,337 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after selling 8,282 shares during the quarter. Bridgewater Associates LP’s holdings in TELUS were worth $325,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of TU. TD Asset Management Inc grew its stake in shares of TELUS by 3.0% in the second quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 41,711,861 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $631,310,000 after buying an additional 1,208,720 shares in the last quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. grew its position in TELUS by 6.6% in the second quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 38,193,733 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $578,253,000 after acquiring an additional 2,365,753 shares in the last quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc raised its stake in shares of TELUS by 1.8% during the second quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 22,404,617 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $338,953,000 after purchasing an additional 387,686 shares during the period. Fiera Capital Corp lifted its position in shares of TELUS by 1.3% during the third quarter. Fiera Capital Corp now owns 16,882,528 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $283,854,000 after purchasing an additional 211,815 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Toronto Dominion Bank boosted its stake in shares of TELUS by 5.4% in the second quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 12,472,610 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $188,835,000 after purchasing an additional 636,845 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

TELUS Stock Performance

Shares of TELUS stock opened at $15.67 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $23.50 billion, a PE ratio of 33.33, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.25 and a beta of 0.73. TELUS Co. has a 1 year low of $14.63 and a 1 year high of $19.14. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $15.90 and its 200-day simple moving average is $16.02. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50, a quick ratio of 0.63 and a current ratio of 0.69.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last released its earnings results on Friday, November 8th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.28 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.17 by $0.11. TELUS had a return on equity of 8.80% and a net margin of 4.56%. The company had revenue of $5.10 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.69 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.19 EPS. TELUS’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts forecast that TELUS Co. will post 0.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, December 11th will be paid a dividend of $0.297 per share. This is a positive change from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, December 11th. This represents a $1.19 annualized dividend and a yield of 7.58%. TELUS’s payout ratio is presently 244.69%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have commented on the stock. Scotiabank upgraded shares of TELUS from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a report on Monday, October 28th. Canaccord Genuity Group downgraded TELUS from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 6th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Thursday, November 21st. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target 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.