Blueshift Asset Management LLC Purchases New Shares in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Blueshift Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm purchased 10,455 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock, valued at approximately $142,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Barclays PLC boosted its stake in shares of TELUS by 38.5% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 467,148 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $7,839,000 after buying an additional 129,934 shares during the period. FMR LLC lifted its position in TELUS by 192.0% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,326,632 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $22,257,000 after acquiring an additional 872,235 shares during the period. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp grew its stake in shares of TELUS by 132.4% in the 3rd quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 479,785 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $8,048,000 after purchasing an additional 273,368 shares during the last quarter. Duff & Phelps Investment Management Co. increased its holdings in shares of TELUS by 13.5% in the third quarter. Duff & Phelps Investment Management Co. now owns 2,666,500 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $44,785,000 after purchasing an additional 317,000 shares during the period. Finally, Mirabella Financial Services LLP purchased a new stake in shares of TELUS during the third quarter worth approximately $4,521,000. 49.40% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts have issued reports on the stock. National Bank Financial cut shares of TELUS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of TELUS from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, February 10th. Bank of America cut TELUS from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday. Morgan Stanley began coverage on TELUS in a report on Monday, December 16th. They issued an “equal weight” rating for the company. Finally, Cormark cut TELUS from a “moderate buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 4th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, TELUS presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $26.00.

TELUS Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:TU opened at $13.94 on Friday. TELUS Co. has a 12 month low of $13.24 and a 12 month high of $17.27. The firm has a market capitalization of $21.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.44, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.18 and a beta of 0.72. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $14.84 and its 200-day simple moving average is $15.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.52, a current ratio of 0.68 and a quick ratio of 0.61.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, February 13th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.18 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.16 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $3.85 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.64 billion. TELUS had a return on equity of 9.07% and a net margin of 4.85%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.10 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that TELUS Co. will post 0.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

TELUS Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 1st. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, March 11th will be given a dividend of $0.2829 per share. This represents a $1.13 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 8.12%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, March 11th. TELUS’s payout ratio is currently 226.53%.

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.