KMG Fiduciary Partners LLC Grows Position in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ)

KMG Fiduciary Partners LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) by 1.9% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 135,400 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock after acquiring an additional 2,574 shares during the quarter. KMG Fiduciary Partners LLC’s holdings in Verizon Communications were worth $5,415,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of VZ. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 6.2% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 101,273,082 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $4,548,163,000 after purchasing an additional 5,936,009 shares during the period. International Assets Investment Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 4,520.3% during the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 4,815,534 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $216,266,000 after purchasing an additional 4,711,309 shares during the period. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund purchased a new position in shares of Verizon Communications during the 3rd quarter worth $177,799,000. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 184.3% during the 4th quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 5,428,540 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $217,087,000 after purchasing an additional 3,519,258 shares during the period. Finally, Janus Henderson Group PLC boosted its holdings in Verizon Communications by 77.1% during the 3rd quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 6,101,616 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $274,052,000 after acquiring an additional 2,656,396 shares during the period. 62.06% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently commented on VZ shares. Scotiabank raised their price objective on shares of Verizon Communications from $46.50 to $47.25 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, October 18th. TD Cowen raised shares of Verizon Communications to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Tigress Financial raised their price objective on shares of Verizon Communications from $52.00 to $55.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 1st. Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of Verizon Communications from $47.00 to $49.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 25th. Finally, KeyCorp lowered shares of Verizon Communications from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 24th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $46.54.

Verizon Communications Stock Performance

Shares of Verizon Communications stock opened at $38.32 on Friday. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $41.11 and its 200-day simple moving average is $41.73. The stock has a market capitalization of $161.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.52, a PEG ratio of 3.17 and a beta of 0.46. Verizon Communications Inc. has a 12 month low of $37.58 and a 12 month high of $45.36. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32, a current ratio of 0.66 and a quick ratio of 0.62.

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 22nd. The cell phone carrier reported $1.19 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.18 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $33.30 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $33.42 billion. Verizon Communications had a net margin of 7.30% and a return on equity of 20.05%. Verizon Communications’s quarterly revenue was up .9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.22 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Verizon Communications Inc. will post 4.6 earnings per share for the current year.

Verizon Communications Cuts Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, February 3rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 10th will be given a dividend of $0.6775 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 10th. This represents a $2.71 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 7.07%. Verizon Communications’s payout ratio is currently 116.81%.

Verizon Communications Profile

Verizon Communications Inc, through its subsidiaries, engages in the provision of communications, technology, information, and entertainment products and services to consumers, businesses, and governmental entities worldwide. It operates in two segments, Verizon Consumer Group (Consumer) and Verizon Business Group (Business).