Waterfront Wealth Inc. Sells 990 Shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ)

Waterfront Wealth Inc. reduced its holdings in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) by 12.1% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 7,216 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock after selling 990 shares during the quarter. Waterfront Wealth Inc.’s holdings in Verizon Communications were worth $272,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. LFA Lugano Financial Advisors SA grew its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 627.8% during the 4th quarter. LFA Lugano Financial Advisors SA now owns 655 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $25,000 after acquiring an additional 565 shares during the period. Morton Brown Family Wealth LLC raised its holdings in Verizon Communications by 130.1% in the fourth quarter. Morton Brown Family Wealth LLC now owns 863 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $33,000 after purchasing an additional 488 shares in the last quarter. HBC Financial Services PLLC lifted its position in Verizon Communications by 320.0% during the third quarter. HBC Financial Services PLLC now owns 1,050 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $34,000 after buying an additional 800 shares during the period. RVW Wealth LLC bought a new stake in shares of Verizon Communications during the 3rd quarter valued at $36,000. Finally, Financial Management Professionals Inc. grew its position in shares of Verizon Communications by 58.4% in the 4th quarter. Financial Management Professionals Inc. now owns 1,096 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $41,000 after buying an additional 404 shares during the period. 62.06% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity at Verizon Communications

In other news, CEO Kyle Malady sold 15,000 shares of Verizon Communications stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $40.33, for a total transaction of $604,950.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 59,201 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,387,576.33. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently commented on the stock. Raymond James boosted their price objective on shares of Verizon Communications from $42.00 to $46.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 24th. UBS Group raised their price objective on Verizon Communications from $37.00 to $43.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 24th. StockNews.com downgraded Verizon Communications from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 31st. Barclays raised their price target on Verizon Communications from $42.00 to $44.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, January 26th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price target on Verizon Communications from $36.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 2nd. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Verizon Communications currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $44.50.

Verizon Communications Stock Performance

Shares of VZ traded up $0.11 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $39.89. 2,127,602 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 19,482,701. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 0.65 and a current ratio of 0.69. Verizon Communications Inc. has a 1 year low of $30.14 and a 1 year high of $43.42. The stock has a market cap of $167.71 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.41, a P/E/G ratio of 3.24 and a beta of 0.41. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $40.54 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $38.17.

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, January 23rd. The cell phone carrier reported $1.08 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.08. The firm had revenue of $35.10 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $34.60 billion. Verizon Communications had a return on equity of 20.71% and a net margin of 8.67%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down .6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.19 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Verizon Communications Inc. will post 4.58 earnings per share for the current year.

Verizon Communications Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 1st. Investors of record on Wednesday, April 10th will be issued a $0.665 dividend. This represents a $2.66 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 6.67%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, April 9th. Verizon Communications’s payout ratio is 96.38%.

Verizon Communications 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).