Transcend Capital Advisors LLC Raises Position in AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)

Transcend Capital Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) by 32.9% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 54,400 shares of the technology company’s stock after acquiring an additional 13,470 shares during the period. Transcend Capital Advisors LLC’s holdings in AT&T were worth $1,239,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in T. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of AT&T by 2.3% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 161,120,657 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $3,532,684,000 after acquiring an additional 3,630,972 shares during the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. raised its position 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 valued at $168,969,000 after purchasing an additional 2,326,904 shares in the last quarter. National Pension Service lifted its stake in AT&T by 15.8% during the third quarter. National Pension Service now owns 15,769,707 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $346,934,000 after purchasing an additional 2,152,016 shares during the last quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp boosted its holdings in shares of AT&T by 112.9% in the 3rd 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 in the last quarter. Finally, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. increased its position in shares of AT&T by 7.5% during the 3rd quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 17,218,490 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $378,807,000 after purchasing an additional 1,206,330 shares during the last quarter. 57.10% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently weighed in on T. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted 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. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of AT&T from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $19.00 to $28.00 in a report on Monday, December 16th. Sanford C. Bernstein increased their target price on shares of AT&T from $28.00 to $29.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 28th. Scotiabank boosted their price target on shares of AT&T from $24.00 to $26.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 28th. Finally, Argus upgraded shares of AT&T from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $27.00 price target for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 16th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating, eighteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, AT&T presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $26.33.

AT&T Stock Performance

Shares of T stock opened at $26.64 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.62, a current ratio of 0.66 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.00. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $23.50 and a 200 day moving average of $22.28. The firm has a market capitalization of $191.19 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.88, a PEG ratio of 3.01 and a beta of 0.59. AT&T Inc. has a 52 week low of $15.94 and a 52 week high of $26.72.

AT&T (NYSE:T) last posted its earnings results on Monday, January 27th. The technology company reported $0.54 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.48 by $0.06. AT&T had a net margin of 8.95% and a return on equity of 13.97%. As a group, research analysts expect that AT&T Inc. will post 2.14 earnings per share for the current year.

AT&T Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, February 3rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 10th were issued a dividend of $0.2775 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 10th. This represents a $1.11 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.17%. AT&T’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 74.50%.

AT&T Company 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.