Appleton Partners Inc. MA Trims Holdings in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ)

Appleton Partners Inc. MA trimmed its position in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) by 16.4% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 7,310 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock after selling 1,431 shares during the period. Appleton Partners Inc. MA’s holdings in Verizon Communications were worth $307,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Verizon Communications by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 351,625,025 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $11,396,167,000 after acquiring an additional 930,367 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Verizon Communications during the 4th quarter valued at about $1,882,164,000. Northern Trust Corp increased its stake in shares of Verizon Communications by 4.7% during the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 44,621,839 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $1,446,194,000 after acquiring an additional 2,015,139 shares during the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors increased its stake in shares of Verizon Communications by 92.9% during the 4th quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 22,599,173 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $851,989,000 after acquiring an additional 10,882,873 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital World Investors increased its stake in shares of Verizon Communications by 127.6% during the 4th quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 21,801,067 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $821,900,000 after acquiring an additional 12,220,777 shares during the last quarter. 62.06% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have recently commented on the stock. Tigress Financial upped their price objective on shares of Verizon Communications from $50.00 to $52.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 17th. Redburn Atlantic raised shares of Verizon Communications from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $33.00 to $39.00 in a research report on Friday, March 22nd. StockNews.com raised shares of Verizon Communications from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, May 4th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their target price on shares of Verizon Communications from $36.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 2nd. Finally, Oppenheimer reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $48.00 target price on shares of Verizon Communications in a research report on Tuesday, April 23rd. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Verizon Communications presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $44.77.

Verizon Communications Stock Up 1.3 %

Shares of Verizon Communications stock traded up $0.53 on Tuesday, hitting $39.99. 4,728,706 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 18,677,355. The stock has a market cap of $168.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.87, a PEG ratio of 2.88 and a beta of 0.42. The company has a quick ratio of 0.67, a current ratio of 0.71 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.42. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $39.98 and its 200 day moving average is $39.89. Verizon Communications Inc. has a 52-week low of $30.14 and a 52-week high of $43.42.

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) last released its earnings results on Monday, April 22nd. The cell phone carrier reported $1.15 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.12 by $0.03. The company had revenue of $33 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $33.23 billion. Verizon Communications had a return on equity of 20.41% and a net margin of 8.44%. The business’s revenue was up .3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.20 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Verizon Communications Inc. will post 4.59 earnings per share for the current year.

Verizon Communications Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, August 1st. Investors of record on Wednesday, July 10th will be paid a dividend of $0.665 per share. This represents a $2.66 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.65%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, July 10th. Verizon Communications’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 99.25%.

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).