TELUS Co. (TSE:T) Receives Average Recommendation of "Hold" from Brokerages

Key Points

• TELUS Co. has received an average recommendation of "Hold" from analysts, with seven firms rating it as a hold and five as a buy.
• The company's recent quarterly dividend has increased from $0.40 to $0.4163 per share, representing a 7.7% dividend yield.
• Analysts have varying price targets for TELUS, with the average 12-month target set at C$23.04 and recent upgrades pushing targets as high as C$24.50.

TELUS Co. (TSE:T - Get Free Report) NYSE: TU has been assigned a consensus recommendation of "Hold" from the eleven ratings firms that are covering the firm, MarketBeat.com reports. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and five have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 12 month price target among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is C$23.18.

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on the stock. Scotiabank set a C$24.50 price target on shares of TELUS and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a report on Friday, June 13th. Canaccord Genuity Group upped their price target on TELUS from C$20.25 to C$21.50 in a research report on Monday, May 12th. National Bankshares lifted their price objective on TELUS from C$22.00 to C$23.00 and gave the stock a "sector perform" rating in a report on Friday, June 6th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on shares of TELUS from C$23.00 to C$24.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a report on Wednesday, July 2nd. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada reduced their target price on shares of TELUS from C$25.00 to C$24.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, April 9th.

TELUS Stock Up 0.7%

TSE:T traded up C$0.16 on Friday, hitting C$21.92. The stock had a trading volume of 1,085,806 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,965,990. TELUS has a 1 year low of C$19.10 and a 1 year high of C$23.43. The firm's fifty day simple moving average is C$22.21 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is C$21.54. The stock has a market cap of C$33.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.65 and a beta of 0.72. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 183.41, a quick ratio of 0.52 and a current ratio of 0.69.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, October 1st. Investors of record on Wednesday, September 10th will be given a dividend of $0.4163 per share. This represents a $1.67 annualized dividend and a yield of 7.6%. This is a boost from TELUS's previous quarterly dividend of $0.40. TELUS's payout ratio is presently 253.11%.

About TELUS

Telus is one of the Big Three wireless service providers in Canada, with its 9 million mobile phone subscribers nationwide constituting about 30% of the total market. It is the incumbent local exchange carrier in the western Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, where it provides internet, television, and landline phone services.