Shelton Capital Management Grows Holdings in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ)

Shelton Capital Management raised its position in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) by 10.2% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 124,577 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock after purchasing an additional 11,545 shares during the period. Shelton Capital Management’s holdings in Verizon Communications were worth $4,633,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich increased its stake in shares of Verizon Communications by 95,391.7% during the 2nd quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich now owns 136,655,301 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $5,082,211,000 after acquiring an additional 136,512,194 shares during the last quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Verizon Communications by 88,532.0% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 79,084,569 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $3,115,932,000 after acquiring an additional 78,995,341 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Verizon Communications during the 4th quarter valued at about $1,829,675,000. Morgan Stanley increased its stake in shares of Verizon Communications by 21.4% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 67,976,459 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $2,678,273,000 after acquiring an additional 11,987,691 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its stake in shares of Verizon Communications by 14,194.1% during the 1st quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 9,221,577 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $358,627,000 after acquiring an additional 9,157,064 shares during the last quarter. 61.06% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Barclays raised shares of Verizon Communications from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $37.00 to $38.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 25th. Tigress Financial dropped their target price on shares of Verizon Communications from $64.00 to $45.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, November 2nd. Citigroup raised shares of Verizon Communications from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $39.00 to $40.00 in a research report on Tuesday, August 29th. Oppenheimer reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $43.00 price objective on shares of Verizon Communications in a research report on Tuesday, August 22nd. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of Verizon Communications from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 26th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $41.50.

Verizon Communications Stock Performance

Shares of VZ opened at $36.23 on Friday. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $33.49 and its 200 day moving average price is $34.50. Verizon Communications Inc. has a 12-month low of $30.14 and a 12-month high of $42.58. The stock has a market capitalization of $152.31 billion, a PE ratio of 7.30, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.19 and a beta of 0.40. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.36, a current ratio of 0.68 and a quick ratio of 0.64.

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 24th. The cell phone carrier reported $1.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.17 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $33 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $33.27 billion. Verizon Communications had a return on equity of 21.26% and a net margin of 15.58%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 3.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.32 earnings per share. Equities research analysts forecast that Verizon Communications Inc. will post 4.7 EPS for the current year.

Verizon Communications Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, November 1st. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, October 10th were paid a $0.665 dividend. This represents a $2.66 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 7.34%. This is a boost from Verizon Communications’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.65. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, October 6th. Verizon Communications’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 53.63%.

Verizon Communications Company Profile

Verizon Communications Inc, through its subsidiaries, provides 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).