Priebe Wealth Holdings LLC Has $245,000 Stock Position in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ)

Priebe Wealth Holdings LLC increased its position in shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) by 4.7% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 6,119 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock after acquiring an additional 273 shares during the quarter. Priebe Wealth Holdings LLC’s holdings in Verizon Communications were worth $245,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in VZ. Profund Advisors LLC grew its holdings in Verizon Communications by 7.6% during the 2nd quarter. Profund Advisors LLC now owns 48,264 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $1,990,000 after acquiring an additional 3,412 shares during the period. ProShare Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Verizon Communications by 9.1% in the 2nd quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 679,435 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $28,020,000 after purchasing an additional 56,534 shares during the last quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Verizon Communications by 18.6% during the second quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 16,077 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $651,000 after purchasing an additional 2,517 shares during the period. DRW Securities LLC bought a new stake in Verizon Communications in the second quarter valued at about $1,334,000. Finally, Public Sector Pension Investment Board lifted its stake in Verizon Communications by 74.5% in the second quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 162,405 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $6,698,000 after buying an additional 69,328 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 62.06% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts have recently commented on the company. Citigroup upped their price target on Verizon Communications from $47.00 to $49.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 25th. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Verizon Communications from $44.00 to $45.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. TD Cowen raised shares of Verizon Communications to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 15th. KeyCorp cut shares of Verizon Communications from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 24th. Finally, StockNews.com cut Verizon Communications from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. 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’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Verizon Communications has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $46.54.

Verizon Communications Price Performance

NYSE:VZ opened at $38.86 on Tuesday. Verizon Communications Inc. has a 52-week low of $37.58 and a 52-week high of $45.36. The company has a market cap of $163.58 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.75, a P/E/G ratio of 3.17 and a beta of 0.46. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a current ratio of 0.66. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $41.03 and its 200 day simple moving average is $41.70.

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

Verizon Communications Cuts Dividend

The company also recently declared 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. This represents a $2.71 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.97%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 10th. Verizon Communications’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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).