Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. Buys New Position in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. bought a new stake in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 10,536 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock, valued at approximately $187,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of TU. Pinnacle Associates Ltd. grew its position in TELUS by 63.3% in the 3rd quarter. Pinnacle Associates Ltd. now owns 49,000 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $801,000 after buying an additional 19,000 shares in the last quarter. Value Partners Investments Inc. grew its position in TELUS by 7.6% in the 3rd quarter. Value Partners Investments Inc. now owns 14,259 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $234,000 after buying an additional 1,010 shares in the last quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc boosted its position 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 valued at $352,841,000 after purchasing an additional 368,650 shares in the last quarter. Lorne Steinberg Wealth Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of TELUS during the 3rd quarter valued at about $3,908,000. Finally, K.J. Harrison & Partners Inc boosted its position in shares of TELUS by 26.7% during the 3rd quarter. K.J. Harrison & Partners Inc now owns 275,460 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $4,519,000 after purchasing an additional 58,000 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

TELUS Price Performance

TU stock opened at $16.07 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35. TELUS Co. has a one year low of $15.35 and a one year high of $21.28. The firm has a market capitalization of $23.72 billion, a PE ratio of 37.37, a P/E/G ratio of 1.96 and a beta of 0.72. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $16.68 and a two-hundred day moving average of $17.27.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Friday, February 9th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.18 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.17 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $5.20 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.24 billion. TELUS had a net margin of 4.18% and a return on equity of 7.81%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 2.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.17 earnings per share. On average, analysts forecast that TELUS Co. will post 0.76 earnings per share for the current year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. BMO Capital Markets reduced their price objective on shares of TELUS from $27.00 to $26.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, February 12th. StockNews.com lowered shares of TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 26th. Scotiabank restated a “sector perform” rating and set a $26.00 price objective (down previously from $28.00) on shares of TELUS in a research report on Monday, March 25th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered shares of TELUS from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 4th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $27.72.

TELUS Profile

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.