Morgan Stanley Initiates Coverage on TELUS (NYSE:TU)

Stock analysts at Morgan Stanley assumed coverage on shares of TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) in a research note issued to investors on Monday. The brokerage set an “equal weight” rating on the Wireless communications provider’s stock.

Several other research analysts have also recently issued reports on the company. Scotiabank upgraded TELUS from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 28th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Thursday, November 21st. Finally, National Bank Financial downgraded shares of TELUS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $26.00.

TELUS Stock Performance

NYSE:TU opened at $14.05 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50, a current ratio of 0.69 and a quick ratio of 0.63. The firm has a market cap of $21.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.89, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.10 and a beta of 0.73. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $15.62 and its 200 day moving average price is $15.94. TELUS has a 1-year low of $14.00 and a 1-year high of $18.55.

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

Institutional Trading of TELUS

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

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.