Royal Bank of Canada Cuts BCE (TSE:BCE) Price Target to C$37.00

BCE (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) had its price target trimmed by Royal Bank of Canada from C$39.00 to C$37.00 in a report issued on Wednesday,BayStreet.CA reports. The firm currently has a sector perform rating on the stock.

BCE has been the topic of a number of other reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on BCE from C$29.00 to C$28.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, April 3rd. Scotiabank lowered their price target 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. Canaccord Genuity Group cut their price objective on shares of BCE from C$33.50 to C$31.50 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, April 7th. TD Securities upped their target price on shares of BCE from C$31.00 to C$33.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, National Bank Financial raised shares of BCE from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, April 3rd. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of C$38.82.

BCE Trading Up 1.0 %

Shares of BCE stock opened at C$29.61 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of C$26.82 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 99.34, a PEG ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.48. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is C$33.05 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is C$36.60. BCE has a 1 year low of C$28.73 and a 1 year high of C$49.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 226.73, a current ratio of 0.62 and a quick ratio of 0.43.

BCE Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 15th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, April 15th will be given 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 13.48%. BCE’s payout ratio is 1,338.57%.

BCE Company Profile

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.