National Bank Financial Has Lowered Expectations for BCE (TSE:BCE) Stock Price

BCE (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) had its price objective cut by stock analysts at National Bank Financial from C$38.00 to C$36.00 in a research note issued to investors on Thursday, BayStreet reports. The firm presently has an “outperform” rating on the stock. National Bank Financial’s price objective would indicate a potential upside of 27.43% from the stock’s current price.

A number of other equities analysts have also recently weighed in on the company. Royal Bank Of Canada lowered their price target on BCE from C$39.00 to C$36.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, July 10th. Scotia boosted their price objective on shares of BCE from C$39.00 to C$40.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a report on Friday, August 7th. Raymond James Financial set a C$37.00 target price on shares of BCE and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 16th. Canaccord Genuity Group dropped their price target on shares of BCE from C$35.00 to C$33.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, July 10th. Finally, TD upped their price objective on shares of BCE from C$37.00 to C$40.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 15th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have given a Buy rating and four have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of C$37.46.

BCE Trading Down 2.5%

Shares of TSE BCE traded down C$0.72 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching C$28.25. 2,845,705 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 4,201,140. The stock has a market capitalization of C$26.34 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.19, a PEG ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.37. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 175.06, a quick ratio of 0.43 and a current ratio of 0.73. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of C$31.56 and a 200 day simple moving average of C$32.52. BCE has a twelve month low of C$28.14 and a twelve month high of C$36.25.

BCE (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 6th. The company reported C$0.65 EPS for the quarter. The firm had revenue of C$6.18 billion for the quarter. BCE had a return on equity of 27.73% and a net margin of 25.89%. As a group, equities analysts expect that BCE will post 3.1120864 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other BCE news, Director Louis Vachon purchased 10,000 shares of BCE stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 18th. The stock was purchased at an average price of C$30.63 per share, for a total transaction of C$306,300.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 100,000 shares in the company, valued at C$3,063,000. This trade represents a 11.11% increase in their ownership of the stock. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

BCE Company Profile

Bell Media is Canada’s leading media and entertainment company with a portfolio of assets in premium video, audio, out-of-home advertising, and digital media. This includes Canada’s most-watched television network, CTV; the largest Canadian-owned video streamer, Crave, with a premium add-on to include STARZ; a powerful suite of specialty channels; the most-trusted news brand, CTV News; Canada’s cross-platform sports leaders, TSN and RDS; leading out-of-home advertising network, Astral; Québec’s fast-growing conventional French-language network, Noovo; the country’s leading radio and podcast app, iHeartRadio Canada; and a range of award-winning original productions, brands, and services.