Court Place Advisors LLC Sells 841 Shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ)

Court Place Advisors LLC lowered its stake in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) by 6.2% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 12,789 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock after selling 841 shares during the quarter. Court Place Advisors LLC’s holdings in Verizon Communications were worth $574,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Verizon Communications by 0.3% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 351,267,175 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $14,739,171,000 after acquiring an additional 1,216,963 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc grew its position in shares of Verizon Communications by 3.0% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 38,357,031 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $1,581,848,000 after purchasing an additional 1,106,887 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 1.5% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 35,561,841 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $1,466,446,000 after purchasing an additional 535,322 shares during the period. Raymond James & Associates boosted its stake in Verizon Communications by 0.6% during the second quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 16,458,264 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $678,739,000 after buying an additional 104,447 shares during the period. Finally, American Century Companies Inc. grew its position in Verizon Communications by 7.7% during the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 13,127,360 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $541,372,000 after buying an additional 936,823 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 62.06% of the company’s stock.

Verizon Communications Trading Up 0.6 %

Shares of VZ stock traded up $0.25 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $42.11. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 1,581,087 shares, compared to its average volume of 18,520,359. The company has a current ratio of 0.63, a quick ratio of 0.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.29. The stock has a market capitalization of $177.25 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.62, a P/E/G ratio of 4.02 and a beta of 0.42. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $43.05 and its 200 day simple moving average is $41.29. Verizon Communications Inc. has a one year low of $33.34 and a one year high of $45.36.

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The cell phone carrier reported $1.19 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.18 by $0.01. Verizon Communications had a net margin of 8.38% and a return on equity of 20.10%. The business had revenue of $33.30 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $33.42 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.22 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up .9% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts expect that Verizon Communications Inc. will post 4.58 EPS for the current year.

Verizon Communications Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 1st. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th will be paid a $0.678 dividend. This is an increase from Verizon Communications’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.67. This represents a $2.71 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.44%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 10th. Verizon Communications’s dividend payout ratio is presently 101.12%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

VZ has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. UBS Group boosted their price objective on Verizon Communications from $43.00 to $44.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday. Bank of America boosted their price target on shares of Verizon Communications from $41.00 to $45.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. Raymond James raised their price objective on shares of Verizon Communications from $44.00 to $48.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price objective on shares of Verizon Communications from $46.00 to $45.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Finally, Scotiabank increased their target price on Verizon Communications from $46.50 to $47.25 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, October 18th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $46.37.

Verizon Communications Company 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).