BCE Inc. Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.44 (TSE:BCE)

BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, September 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 15th will be paid a dividend of 0.4375 per share on Thursday, October 15th. This represents a c) annualized dividend and a yield of 5.4%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 15th.

BCE Trading Up 0.8%

TSE:BCE traded up C$0.26 during midday trading on Friday, hitting C$32.39. The stock had a trading volume of 3,080,135 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,079,188. The stock has a 50-day moving average of C$31.52 and a 200 day moving average of C$33.00. The company has a market capitalization of C$30.20 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.81, a PEG ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.37. BCE has a one year low of C$29.66 and a one year high of C$36.25. The company has a quick ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 0.73 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 175.06.

BCE (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, August 6th. The company reported C$0.65 earnings per share for the quarter. BCE had a return on equity of 27.73% and a net margin of 25.89%.The business had revenue of C$6.18 billion during the quarter. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that BCE will post 3.1120864 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

BCE has been the topic of several research reports. Scotiabank cut their price target on BCE from C$41.00 to C$39.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, July 7th. Royal Bank Of Canada lowered their price objective on shares of BCE from C$39.00 to C$36.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, July 10th. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of BCE from an “underweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and increased their target price for the stock from C$31.00 to C$35.00 in a report on Tuesday, July 21st. Desjardins cut their target price on shares of BCE from C$43.50 to C$41.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, August 7th. Finally, TD raised shares of BCE from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a C$37.00 price target for the company in a research report on Thursday, July 2nd. One investment 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. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of C$37.31.

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.