National Bank Financial Lifts Earnings Estimates for BCE

BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) – Research analysts at National Bank Financial upped their FY2025 earnings per share estimates for BCE in a report released on Wednesday, March 26th. National Bank Financial analyst A. Shine now anticipates that the company will earn $2.78 per share for the year, up from their previous forecast of $2.70. The consensus estimate for BCE’s current full-year earnings is $3.11 per share.

A number of other brokerages have also recently weighed in on BCE. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut shares of BCE from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from C$35.00 to C$29.00 in a report on Friday, February 7th. National Bankshares increased their price objective on shares of BCE from C$35.00 to C$36.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Scotiabank decreased their target price on BCE from C$42.00 to C$40.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Canaccord Genuity Group increased their price target on BCE from C$33.00 to C$33.50 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, Barclays lowered BCE from an “equal weight” rating to an “underperform” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from C$41.00 to C$30.00 in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of C$40.50.

BCE Stock Performance

BCE stock opened at C$33.03 on Monday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is C$33.83 and its 200 day simple moving average is C$37.77. BCE has a 12-month low of C$31.43 and a 12-month high of C$49.13. The firm has a market cap of C$29.92 billion, a P/E ratio of 110.81, a P/E/G ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.48. 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 Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 15th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, April 15th will be issued a $0.9975 dividend. This represents a $3.99 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 12.08%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 14th. 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.