SBB Research Group LLC Purchases Shares of 11,898 Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ)

SBB Research Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund acquired 11,898 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock, valued at approximately $442,000. Verizon Communications accounts for about 0.8% of SBB Research Group LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 23rd biggest holding.

Several other large investors have also made changes to their positions in VZ. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich boosted its holdings in Verizon Communications by 95,391.7% in 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 purchasing an additional 136,512,194 shares during the period. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Verizon Communications by 88,532.0% during the fourth 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 buying an additional 78,995,341 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Verizon Communications in the fourth quarter valued at about $1,829,675,000. Morgan Stanley grew its position in Verizon Communications by 21.4% during the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 67,976,459 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $2,678,273,000 after buying an additional 11,987,691 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its stake in Verizon Communications by 14,194.1% during the first 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 period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 61.06% of the company’s stock.

Verizon Communications Price Performance

Shares of VZ traded up $0.05 on Friday, hitting $36.23. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 19,361,158 shares, compared to its average volume of 22,131,379. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $33.49 and a 200 day moving average price of $34.47. Verizon Communications Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $30.14 and a fifty-two week high of $42.58. The company has a market capitalization of $152.31 billion, a PE ratio of 7.30, a PEG 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 quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 24th. The cell phone carrier reported $1.22 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.17 by $0.05. Verizon Communications had a net margin of 15.58% and a return on equity of 21.26%. The firm had revenue of $33 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $33.27 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.32 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 3.5% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that Verizon Communications Inc. will post 4.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Verizon Communications Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, November 1st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, October 10th were paid a dividend of $0.665 per share. This represents a $2.66 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 7.34%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, October 6th. This is a positive change from Verizon Communications’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.65. Verizon Communications’s dividend payout ratio is 53.63%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

VZ has been the topic of several recent research reports. Tigress Financial decreased their price objective on Verizon Communications from $64.00 to $45.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, November 2nd. Barclays upgraded shares of Verizon Communications from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $37.00 to $38.00 in a research note on Wednesday, October 25th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Verizon Communications from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 26th. Raymond James dropped their price target on shares of Verizon Communications from $51.00 to $42.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, July 26th. Finally, Oppenheimer reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $43.00 price objective on shares of Verizon Communications in a research note on Tuesday, August 22nd. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Verizon Communications presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $41.50.

About Verizon Communications

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).