Nordea Investment Management AB Raises Holdings in AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)

Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its stake in shares of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) by 22.8% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 17,160,073 shares of the technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 3,182,234 shares during the quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB’s holdings in AT&T were worth $274,046,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Steward Financial Group LLC raised its stake in shares of AT&T by 159.7% during the 1st quarter. Steward Financial Group LLC now owns 1,561 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $30,000 after buying an additional 960 shares during the last quarter. Carmel Capital Partners LLC purchased a new position in AT&T during the first quarter valued at approximately $31,000. FWL Investment Management LLC acquired a new position in AT&T in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Koesten Hirschmann & Crabtree INC. purchased a new stake in AT&T in the 4th quarter worth approximately $32,000. Finally, Lakewood Asset Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of AT&T during the 4th quarter worth approximately $32,000. 53.65% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts recently commented on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price target on shares of AT&T from $19.00 to $14.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, August 10th. HSBC lowered their price target on AT&T from $21.00 to $19.00 in a research report on Monday, June 5th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft decreased their target price on AT&T from $23.00 to $22.00 in a research report on Friday, July 14th. Moffett Nathanson upgraded shares of AT&T from an “underperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and set a $17.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Tuesday, June 6th. Finally, Morgan Stanley reiterated an “equal weight” rating and issued a $20.00 target price on shares of AT&T in a research report on Thursday, August 3rd. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, five have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $20.00.

AT&T Stock Up 0.9 %

T stock traded up $0.13 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $15.19. 8,494,026 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 38,664,852. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $14.49 and its 200 day simple moving average is $16.40. AT&T Inc. has a 1-year low of $13.43 and a 1-year high of $20.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.10, a quick ratio of 0.63 and a current ratio of 0.68. The company has a market cap of $108.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -12.34, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.79 and a beta of 0.64.

AT&T (NYSE:T) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, July 26th. The technology company reported $0.63 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.60 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $29.92 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $30.07 billion. AT&T had a positive return on equity of 15.91% and a negative net margin of 7.22%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up .9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.65 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that AT&T Inc. will post 2.43 earnings per share for the current year.

AT&T Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, August 1st. Shareholders of record on Monday, July 10th were paid a $0.2775 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, July 7th. This represents a $1.11 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 7.31%. AT&T’s dividend payout ratio is presently -90.98%.

AT&T Company Profile

AT&T Inc provides telecommunications and technology services worldwide. The company operates through two segments, Communications and Latin America. The Communications segment offers wireless voice and data communications services; and sells handsets, wireless data cards, wireless computing devices, and carrying cases and hands-free devices through its own company-owned stores, agents, and third-party retail stores.