National Bankshares Increases BCE (TSE:BCE) Price Target to C$36.00

BCE (TSE:BCE) (NYSE:BCE) had its price objective hoisted by equities researchers at National Bankshares from C$35.00 to C$36.00 in a research report issued to clients and investors on Tuesday,BayStreet.CA reports. The brokerage presently has a “sector perform” rating on the stock. National Bankshares’ price objective indicates a potential upside of 2.74% from the company’s current price.

A number of other brokerages have also recently commented on BCE. Scotiabank dropped their price objective on shares of BCE from C$42.00 to C$40.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Canaccord Genuity Group raised their price objective on shares of BCE from C$33.00 to C$33.50 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price objective on shares of BCE from C$45.00 to C$41.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. TD Securities increased their target price on BCE from C$31.00 to C$33.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered BCE from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and decreased their target price for the company from C$35.00 to C$29.00 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 given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, BCE currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of C$40.50.

BCE Price Performance

Shares of TSE BCE opened at C$35.04 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of C$31.74 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 117.55, a PEG ratio of 4.67 and a beta of 0.48. BCE has a 12 month low of C$31.43 and a 12 month high of C$49.13. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is C$33.91 and its 200-day simple moving average is C$39.15. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 226.73, a current ratio of 0.62 and a quick ratio of 0.43.

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.