Bridgewater Associates LP Reduces Stock Position in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Bridgewater Associates LP decreased its position in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 30.0% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 19,337 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after selling 8,282 shares during the quarter. Bridgewater Associates LP’s holdings in TELUS were worth $325,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Fairscale Capital LLC acquired a new stake in TELUS in the 2nd quarter valued at about $27,000. Blue Trust Inc. grew its position in shares of TELUS by 60.4% in the second quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 2,533 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $41,000 after purchasing an additional 954 shares during the last quarter. Trust Co. of Vermont increased its stake in shares of TELUS by 19.0% during the 3rd quarter. Trust Co. of Vermont now owns 7,623 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $128,000 after purchasing an additional 1,218 shares in the last quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of TELUS during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $123,000. Finally, Unique Wealth Strategies LLC purchased a new stake in TELUS in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $141,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have weighed in on the company. Scotiabank raised TELUS from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 28th. Canaccord Genuity Group downgraded shares of TELUS from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 6th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Thursday, November 21st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, TELUS has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $26.00.

TELUS Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:TU opened at $15.67 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $23.50 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.33, a P/E/G ratio of 2.25 and a beta of 0.73. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $15.90 and a 200-day simple moving average of $16.02. TELUS Co. has a 52 week low of $14.63 and a 52 week high of $19.14. The company has a quick ratio of 0.63, a current ratio of 0.69 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Friday, November 8th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.28 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $5.10 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.69 billion. TELUS had a return on equity of 8.80% and a net margin of 4.56%. The firm’s revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.19 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that TELUS Co. will post 0.73 EPS for the current year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, December 11th will be paid a dividend of $0.297 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, December 11th. This represents a $1.19 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 7.58%. This is an increase from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 244.69%.

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.