Cogeco Communications (TSE:CCA) Upgraded to “Strong-Buy” by National Bank Financial

National Bank Financial upgraded shares of Cogeco Communications (TSE:CCA) from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a research report sent to investors on Thursday morning, Zacks.com reports.

Several other analysts also recently commented on CCA. Bank of America raised shares of Cogeco Communications from an underperform rating to a buy rating and boosted their target price for the stock from C$60.00 to C$65.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 17th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on shares of Cogeco Communications from C$73.00 to C$76.00 and gave the stock a sector perform rating in a report on Monday, July 15th. BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on Cogeco Communications from C$65.00 to C$70.00 in a report on Thursday, September 5th. National Bankshares upgraded Cogeco Communications from a sector perform rating to an outperform rating and upped their price target for the stock from C$64.00 to C$80.00 in a research note on Friday. Finally, TD Securities raised their price objective on Cogeco Communications from C$80.00 to C$85.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Monday, July 15th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, four have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of C$71.28.

Cogeco Communications Price Performance

Shares of TSE:CCA opened at C$68.12 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of C$2.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.69, a P/E/G ratio of 4.77 and a beta of 0.57. Cogeco Communications has a 1 year low of C$50.78 and a 1 year high of C$68.98. The company has a current ratio of 0.41, a quick ratio of 0.49 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 142.88. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of C$64.23 and a 200 day simple moving average of C$58.57.

Cogeco Communications (TSE:CCA) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 11th. The company reported C$2.45 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of C$1.73 by C$0.72. The company had revenue of C$750.58 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of C$751.50 million. Cogeco Communications had a return on equity of 10.52% and a net margin of 11.44%. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Cogeco Communications will post 8.2156863 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Cogeco Communications Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 8th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 25th were given a $0.854 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, July 25th. This represents a $3.42 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.01%. Cogeco Communications’s dividend payout ratio is 43.62%.

About Cogeco Communications

Cogeco Communications Inc operates as a telecommunications corporation in Canada and the United States. It operates in two segments, Canadian Telecommunications and American Telecommunications. The company offers Internet, video, and Internet protocol (IP) based telephony services to residential and small business customers through its two-way broadband fiber networks.