TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) Shares Sold by IFP Advisors Inc

IFP Advisors Inc cut its stake in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 53.5% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 5,794 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after selling 6,659 shares during the quarter. IFP Advisors Inc’s holdings in TELUS were worth $79,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Versant Capital Management Inc increased its stake in shares of TELUS by 195,100.0% in the 4th quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 1,952 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $26,000 after acquiring an additional 1,951 shares during the last quarter. Avior Wealth Management LLC increased its stake in shares of TELUS by 1,756.0% in the 4th quarter. Avior Wealth Management LLC now owns 4,807 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $65,000 after acquiring an additional 4,548 shares during the last quarter. Triasima Portfolio Management inc. acquired a new stake in shares of TELUS in the 4th quarter worth $146,000. Private Advisor Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of TELUS in the 3rd quarter worth $187,000. Finally, Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC increased its stake in shares of TELUS by 25.6% in the 3rd quarter. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC now owns 15,270 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $256,000 after acquiring an additional 3,110 shares during the last quarter. 49.40% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

TU has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. National Bank Financial cut TELUS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. Morgan Stanley initiated coverage on TELUS in a report on Monday, December 16th. They set an “equal weight” rating for the company. Cormark cut TELUS from a “moderate buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded TELUS from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, February 10th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, TELUS has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $26.00.

TELUS Stock Performance

NYSE TU opened at $15.38 on Thursday. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $14.50 and a 200-day simple moving average of $15.37. TELUS Co. has a twelve month low of $13.24 and a twelve month high of $17.77. The stock has a market cap of $23.06 billion, a PE ratio of 31.38, a P/E/G ratio of 5.18 and a beta of 0.72. The company has a current ratio of 0.68, a quick ratio of 0.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.52.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 13th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.18 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.16 by $0.02. TELUS had a return on equity of 9.07% and a net margin of 4.85%. The company had revenue of $3.85 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.64 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.10 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that TELUS Co. will post 0.71 earnings per share for the current year.

TELUS Cuts Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 1st. Investors of record on Tuesday, March 11th will be issued a dividend of $0.2829 per share. This represents a $1.13 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 7.36%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, March 11th. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 226.53%.

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.