Cerity Partners LLC Lowers Position in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Cerity Partners LLC lowered its stake in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 4.1% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 52,488 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after selling 2,222 shares during the quarter. Cerity Partners LLC’s holdings in TELUS were worth $934,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Pinnacle Associates Ltd. increased its position in shares of TELUS by 63.3% during the third quarter. Pinnacle Associates Ltd. now owns 49,000 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $801,000 after acquiring an additional 19,000 shares during the last quarter. Value Partners Investments Inc. increased its position in shares of TELUS by 7.6% during the 3rd quarter. Value Partners Investments Inc. now owns 14,259 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $234,000 after purchasing an additional 1,010 shares during the last quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc raised its stake in shares of TELUS by 1.7% during the 3rd 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 during the period. Lorne Steinberg Wealth Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of TELUS in the 3rd quarter worth about $3,908,000. Finally, K.J. Harrison & Partners Inc grew its position in TELUS by 26.7% during the third quarter. K.J. Harrison & Partners Inc now owns 275,460 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $4,519,000 after buying an additional 58,000 shares during the period. 49.40% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

TELUS Trading Up 1.0 %

NYSE TU opened at $16.08 on Tuesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.62, a current ratio of 0.67 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $16.72 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $17.28. TELUS Co. has a twelve month low of $15.35 and a twelve month high of $21.34. The company has a market capitalization of $23.73 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.38, a PEG ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 0.72.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last released 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 during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.24 billion. TELUS had a return on equity of 7.81% and a net margin of 4.18%. TELUS’s quarterly revenue was up 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.17 EPS. Research analysts forecast that TELUS Co. will post 0.76 EPS for the current fiscal year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 1st. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 11th were paid a $0.2793 dividend. This is a boost from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.27. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, March 8th. This represents a $1.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 6.95%. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio is 258.14%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

TU has been the topic of a number of research reports. StockNews.com cut shares of TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 26th. Scotiabank reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and set a $26.00 price target (down previously from $28.00) on shares of TELUS in a research report on Monday, March 25th. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price objective on TELUS from $27.00 to $26.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Monday, February 12th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of TELUS from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, January 4th. 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’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, TELUS currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $27.72.

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.