Patton Albertson Miller Group LLC Acquires 6,945 Shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ)

Patton Albertson Miller Group LLC lifted its holdings in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) by 5.9% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 124,716 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock after acquiring an additional 6,945 shares during the quarter. Patton Albertson Miller Group LLC’s holdings in Verizon Communications were worth $4,987,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in VZ. Insight Inv LLC increased its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 27.0% in the fourth quarter. Insight Inv LLC now owns 27,401 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $1,096,000 after buying an additional 5,818 shares during the period. Stewardship Advisors LLC increased its stake in Verizon Communications by 5.3% in the 4th quarter. Stewardship Advisors LLC now owns 6,472 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $259,000 after purchasing an additional 328 shares during the period. Advocate Group LLC lifted its position in Verizon Communications by 3.9% in the fourth quarter. Advocate Group LLC now owns 252,157 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $10,084,000 after purchasing an additional 9,554 shares during the last quarter. First Bancorp Inc ME boosted its stake in shares of Verizon Communications by 13.4% during the fourth quarter. First Bancorp Inc ME now owns 20,561 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $822,000 after purchasing an additional 2,430 shares during the period. Finally, Cedar Mountain Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 655.5% in the fourth quarter. Cedar Mountain Advisors LLC now owns 967 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $39,000 after purchasing an additional 839 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 62.06% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on the stock. StockNews.com lowered shares of Verizon Communications from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. UBS Group upped their price objective 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 Verizon Communications to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 15th. KeyCorp lowered Verizon Communications from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 24th. Finally, Wolfe Research lifted their price objective on Verizon Communications from $50.00 to $51.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seven have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $46.29.

Verizon Communications Trading Up 0.9 %

NYSE:VZ opened at $39.54 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $166.43 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.04, a PEG ratio of 3.27 and a beta of 0.46. 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 Inc. has a one year low of $37.58 and a one year high of $45.36. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $40.85 and its 200 day simple moving average is $41.61.

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, January 24th. The cell phone carrier reported $1.10 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.11 by ($0.01). Verizon Communications had a return on equity of 20.05% and a net margin of 7.30%. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.08 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that Verizon Communications Inc. will post 4.59 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Verizon Communications Cuts Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, February 3rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 10th will be issued 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 6.85%. Verizon Communications’s payout ratio is presently 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).