K.J. Harrison & Partners Inc Reduces Position in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

K.J. Harrison & Partners Inc decreased its stake in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 38.5% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 148,908 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after selling 93,185 shares during the quarter. K.J. Harrison & Partners Inc’s holdings in TELUS were worth $2,027,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of TU. Barclays PLC raised its stake in TELUS by 38.5% in the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 467,148 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $7,839,000 after acquiring an additional 129,934 shares during the last quarter. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board increased its position in shares of TELUS by 159.6% in the third quarter. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board now owns 140,539 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $2,360,000 after buying an additional 86,393 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its position in TELUS by 192.0% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,326,632 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $22,257,000 after acquiring an additional 872,235 shares during the period. Entropy Technologies LP purchased a new position in TELUS in the 3rd quarter valued at about $945,000. Finally, Nicola Wealth Management LTD. boosted its stake in shares of TELUS by 35.7% in the third quarter. Nicola Wealth Management LTD. now owns 1,060,819 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $17,801,000 after acquiring an additional 279,000 shares during the last quarter. 49.40% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts have weighed in on TU shares. StockNews.com raised shares of TELUS from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, February 10th. Morgan Stanley started coverage on shares of TELUS in a research note on Monday, December 16th. They set an “equal weight” rating for the company. Finally, National Bank Financial cut TELUS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $26.00.

TELUS Stock Performance

Shares of TELUS stock opened at $15.65 on Thursday. TELUS Co. has a 12 month low of $13.24 and a 12 month high of $17.77. The stock has a market capitalization of $23.48 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.94, a PEG ratio of 5.18 and a beta of 0.75. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $14.32 and its 200-day simple moving average is $15.40. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.52, a current ratio of 0.68 and a quick ratio of 0.61.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 13th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.18 earnings per share 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 for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.64 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.10 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that TELUS Co. will post 0.71 earnings per share for the current year.

TELUS Cuts Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 1st. Investors of record on Tuesday, March 11th will be paid a dividend of $0.2829 per share. This represents a $1.13 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 7.23%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, March 11th. TELUS’s payout ratio is currently 224.49%.

TELUS Company 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.