Keyes Stange & Wooten Wealth Management LLC Boosts Position in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ)

Keyes Stange & Wooten Wealth Management LLC increased its position in shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) by 6.6% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 16,716 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,032 shares during the quarter. Keyes Stange & Wooten Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Verizon Communications were worth $751,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Swedbank AB acquired a new position in shares of Verizon Communications in the 1st quarter valued at $250,312,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in Verizon Communications by 6.2% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 101,273,082 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $4,548,163,000 after buying an additional 5,936,009 shares during the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in Verizon Communications by 4,520.3% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 4,815,534 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $216,266,000 after buying an additional 4,711,309 shares during the period. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale boosted its stake in Verizon Communications by 112.6% during the first quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale now owns 6,574,910 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $273,507,000 after buying an additional 3,481,936 shares during the period. Finally, Bank of Montreal Can increased its position in shares of Verizon Communications by 18.6% during the second quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 13,016,271 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $536,791,000 after acquiring an additional 2,040,247 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 62.06% of the company’s stock.

Verizon Communications Trading Up 1.5 %

NYSE:VZ opened at $43.15 on Friday. Verizon Communications Inc. has a 1 year low of $36.46 and a 1 year high of $45.36. The stock has a market cap of $181.65 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.60, a P/E/G ratio of 3.09 and a beta of 0.43. 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 has a 50-day simple moving average of $42.90 and a 200-day simple moving average of $41.53.

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The cell phone carrier reported $1.19 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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 firm had revenue of $33.30 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $33.42 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.22 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up .9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts anticipate that Verizon Communications Inc. will post 4.61 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Verizon Communications Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 1st. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th were paid a dividend of $0.678 per share. This is a positive change from Verizon Communications’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.67. This represents a $2.71 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.29%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. Verizon Communications’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 116.81%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms recently weighed in on VZ. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on shares of Verizon Communications from $42.00 to $46.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Monday, September 23rd. UBS Group lifted their price objective on Verizon Communications from $43.00 to $44.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. StockNews.com raised Verizon Communications from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Scotiabank lifted their target price on Verizon Communications from $46.50 to $47.25 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Friday, October 18th. Finally, Tigress Financial increased their price target on shares of Verizon Communications from $52.00 to $55.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 1st. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Verizon Communications currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $46.37.

About Verizon Communications

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).