BCE (TSE:BCE) Shares Cross Above 200 Day Moving Average – What’s Next?

BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) shares passed above its two hundred day moving average during trading on Monday . The stock has a two hundred day moving average of C$0.00 and traded as high as C$33.85. BCE shares last traded at C$33.78, with a volume of 4,411,591 shares traded.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have weighed in on BCE. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered shares of BCE from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and dropped their price target for the stock from C$35.00 to C$29.00 in a research report on Friday, February 7th. TD Securities upped their price target on shares of BCE from C$31.00 to C$33.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Canaccord Genuity Group dropped their price target on shares of BCE from C$41.00 to C$37.50 in a research report on Friday, November 8th. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price target on shares of BCE from C$45.00 to C$41.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Finally, Scotiabank dropped their price target on shares of BCE from C$42.00 to C$40.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, BCE has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of C$40.42.

BCE Stock Up 0.8 %

The firm has a market capitalization of C$30.60 billion, a P/E ratio of 113.33, a PEG ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.48. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is C$33.91. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 226.73, a quick ratio of 0.43 and a current ratio of 0.62.

BCE Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 15th. Investors of record on Wednesday, January 15th were paid a dividend of $0.9975 per share. This represents a $3.99 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 11.81%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 16th. BCE’s payout ratio is 1,338.57%.

BCE Company Profile

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.