Vestmark Advisory Solutions Inc. Trims Holdings in AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)

Vestmark Advisory Solutions Inc. reduced its holdings in shares of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) by 3.1% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 17,526 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 564 shares during the quarter. Vestmark Advisory Solutions Inc.’s holdings in AT&T were worth $399,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in T. Assetmark Inc. lifted its stake in AT&T by 4,986.1% during the fourth quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 9,913,960 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $225,741,000 after purchasing an additional 9,719,036 shares during the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its stake in AT&T by 7.1% during the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 85,592,594 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,948,943,000 after purchasing an additional 5,649,277 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in AT&T by 2.3% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 161,120,657 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $3,532,684,000 after purchasing an additional 3,630,972 shares during the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. lifted its stake in AT&T by 41.4% during the third quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 7,947,913 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $168,969,000 after purchasing an additional 2,326,904 shares during the last quarter. Finally, BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp lifted its stake in AT&T by 112.9% during the third quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 2,916,698 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $64,167,000 after purchasing an additional 1,546,679 shares during the last quarter. 57.10% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

T has been the topic of several analyst reports. Sanford C. Bernstein increased their target price on AT&T from $28.00 to $29.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 28th. DZ Bank raised AT&T from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $27.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 29th. Tigress Financial increased their target price on AT&T from $30.00 to $32.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 4th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on AT&T from $25.00 to $28.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 4th. Finally, Scotiabank increased their target price on AT&T from $26.00 to $28.50 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, March 3rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating, seventeen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $26.74.

AT&T Trading Up 1.6 %

Shares of T stock opened at $27.15 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $24.30 and a 200 day simple moving average of $22.82. AT&T Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $15.94 and a fifty-two week high of $27.97. The stock has a market capitalization of $194.85 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.22, a P/E/G ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 0.56. The company has a quick ratio of 0.62, a current ratio of 0.66 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.00.

AT&T (NYSE:T) last announced its earnings results on Monday, January 27th. The technology company reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.48 by $0.06. AT&T had a return on equity of 13.97% and a net margin of 8.95%. On average, sell-side analysts expect that AT&T Inc. will post 2.14 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

AT&T Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, February 3rd. Investors of record on Friday, January 10th were paid a $0.2775 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 10th. This represents a $1.11 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.09%. AT&T’s dividend payout ratio is currently 74.50%.

AT&T Profile

AT&T, Inc is a holding company, which engages in the provision of telecommunications and technology services. It operates through the Communications and Latin America segments. The Communications segment offers wireless, wireline telecom, and broadband services to businesses and consumers located in the US and businesses globally.