Scotiabank Has Lowered Expectations for BCE (TSE:BCE) Stock Price

BCE (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) had its price objective reduced by investment analysts at Scotiabank from C$40.00 to C$39.50 in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday,BayStreet.CA reports. The brokerage presently has a “sector perform” rating on the stock. Scotiabank’s target price suggests a potential upside of 31.10% from the stock’s current price.

Several other equities research analysts have also recently weighed in on the stock. Barclays cut shares of BCE from an “equal weight” rating to an “underperform” rating and lowered their price objective for the company from C$41.00 to C$30.00 in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. National Bank Financial raised shares of BCE from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, April 3rd. Canaccord Genuity Group reduced their price objective on BCE from C$33.50 to C$31.50 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, April 7th. National Bankshares increased their price objective on BCE from C$35.00 to C$36.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Finally, TD Securities boosted their target price on BCE from C$31.00 to C$33.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have given a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of C$38.77.

BCE Price Performance

BCE stock traded up C$0.46 on Wednesday, reaching C$30.13. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 1,718,917 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,090,624. The business’s fifty day moving average price is C$32.85 and its 200 day moving average price is C$36.36. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 226.73, a quick ratio of 0.43 and a current ratio of 0.62. The company has a market cap of C$27.29 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 101.08, a PEG ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.48. BCE has a twelve month low of C$28.73 and a twelve month high of C$49.13.

About BCE

BCE is both a wireless and internet service provider, offering wireless, broadband, television, and landline phone services in Canada. It is one of the big three national wireless carriers, with its roughly 10 million customers constituting about 30% of the market. It is also the ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrierthe legacy telephone provider) throughout much of the eastern half of Canada, including in the most populous Canadian provincesOntario and Quebec.