Wealth Advisors of Tampa Bay LLC Has $3.90 Million Stock Holdings in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Wealth Advisors of Tampa Bay LLC reduced its holdings in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU - Free Report) TSE: T by 51.7% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 219,243 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock after selling 234,409 shares during the quarter. TELUS accounts for 2.0% of Wealth Advisors of Tampa Bay LLC's portfolio, making the stock its 17th largest position. Wealth Advisors of Tampa Bay LLC's holdings in TELUS were worth $3,900,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of TU. Mackenzie Financial Corp lifted its position in shares of TELUS by 8.3% during the fourth quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 59,637,886 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock worth $1,149,047,000 after purchasing an additional 4,574,843 shares in the last quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. lifted its position in shares of TELUS by 8.0% during the fourth quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 27,323,495 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock worth $527,617,000 after purchasing an additional 2,021,793 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of TELUS by 1.8% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 21,789,027 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock worth $356,033,000 after purchasing an additional 387,561 shares in the last quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia lifted its position in shares of TELUS by 2.5% during the third quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia now owns 21,630,693 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock worth $353,226,000 after purchasing an additional 533,306 shares in the last quarter. Finally, CIBC Asset Management Inc lifted its position in shares of TELUS by 1.7% during the third quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 21,540,649 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock worth $352,841,000 after purchasing an additional 368,650 shares in the last quarter. 49.40% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently commented on TU. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut shares of TELUS from an "overweight" rating to a "neutral" rating in a research report on Thursday, January 4th. BMO Capital Markets cut their price target on shares of TELUS from $27.00 to $26.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a report on Monday, February 12th. StockNews.com cut shares of TELUS from a "hold" rating to a "sell" rating in a report on Tuesday, March 26th. Finally, Scotiabank reaffirmed a "sector perform" rating and issued a $26.00 price target (down from $28.00) on shares of TELUS in a report on Monday, March 25th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, TELUS currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $27.72.

TELUS Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:TU traded up $0.06 on Friday, reaching $16.02. 2,652,064 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,062,396. The firm has a market capitalization of $23.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.26, a PEG ratio of 1.91 and a beta of 0.72. TELUS Co. has a fifty-two week low of $15.47 and a fifty-two week high of $21.34. The business's 50-day moving average is $17.09 and its two-hundred day moving average is $17.30. The company has a quick ratio of 0.62, a current ratio of 0.67 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35.

TELUS (NYSE:TU - Get Free Report) TSE: T last issued its earnings results on Friday, February 9th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.18 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.17 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $5.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $5.24 billion. TELUS had a net margin of 4.18% and a return on equity of 7.81%. The firm's revenue was up 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.17 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that TELUS Co. will post 0.78 EPS for the current year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 1st. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 11th were given a dividend of $0.2793 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, March 8th. This represents a $1.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.97%. This is a positive change from TELUS's previous quarterly dividend of $0.27. TELUS's dividend payout ratio is currently 258.14%.

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.