OVERSEA CHINESE BANKING Corp Ltd Purchases Shares of 11,939 Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ)

OVERSEA CHINESE BANKING Corp Ltd acquired a new position in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) in the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund acquired 11,939 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock, valued at approximately $536,000.

Several other large investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Alliance Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Verizon Communications by 1.4% in the 2nd quarter. Alliance Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 17,760 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $732,000 after acquiring an additional 241 shares during the period. Fermata Advisors LLC lifted its position in Verizon Communications by 4.5% in the third quarter. Fermata Advisors LLC now owns 5,626 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $253,000 after purchasing an additional 243 shares during the period. Austin Private Wealth LLC lifted its position in Verizon Communications by 3.0% in the third quarter. Austin Private Wealth LLC now owns 8,450 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $379,000 after purchasing an additional 243 shares during the period. Semmax Financial Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in Verizon Communications by 0.4% during the second quarter. Semmax Financial Advisors Inc. now owns 54,926 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $2,240,000 after buying an additional 246 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cary Street Partners Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in Verizon Communications by 3.4% in the 3rd quarter. Cary Street Partners Asset Management LLC now owns 7,628 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $343,000 after buying an additional 249 shares during the period. 62.06% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have recently weighed in on VZ shares. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on shares of Verizon Communications from $42.00 to $46.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Monday, September 23rd. Citigroup upped their price objective on Verizon Communications from $47.00 to $49.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 25th. TD Cowen raised their target price on Verizon Communications from $48.00 to $51.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 23rd. UBS Group boosted their price target on Verizon Communications from $43.00 to $44.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. Finally, KeyCorp cut Verizon Communications from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Thursday, October 24th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $46.37.

Verizon Communications Stock Performance

VZ stock opened at $41.15 on Thursday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $43.03 and a 200 day moving average price of $41.41. Verizon Communications Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $35.81 and a fifty-two week high of $45.36. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32, a current ratio of 0.66 and a quick ratio of 0.62. The stock has a market capitalization of $173.21 billion, a PE ratio of 17.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 0.43.

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The cell phone carrier reported $1.19 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.18 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $33.30 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $33.42 billion. Verizon Communications had a return on equity of 20.05% and a net margin of 7.30%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up .9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.22 earnings per share. Analysts forecast that Verizon Communications Inc. will post 4.61 EPS for the current year.

Verizon Communications Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 1st. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were paid a $0.678 dividend. This represents a $2.71 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.59%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. This is a positive change from Verizon Communications’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.67. Verizon Communications’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 116.81%.

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).