Herold Advisors Inc. Sells 1,188 Shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ)

Herold Advisors Inc. cut its stake in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) by 2.0% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 59,730 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock after selling 1,188 shares during the period. Herold Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Verizon Communications were worth $2,252,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Verizon Communications by 0.3% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 351,625,025 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $11,396,167,000 after purchasing an additional 930,367 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its holdings in Verizon Communications by 4.8% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 98,027,542 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $3,151,714,000 after purchasing an additional 4,527,387 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp raised its position in Verizon Communications by 4.7% during the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 44,621,839 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $1,446,194,000 after acquiring an additional 2,015,139 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its position in Verizon Communications by 17.0% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 28,400,326 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $920,455,000 after acquiring an additional 4,134,150 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Envestnet Asset Management Inc. raised its position in Verizon Communications by 17.6% during the third quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 9,261,791 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $300,175,000 after acquiring an additional 1,385,957 shares in the last quarter. 62.06% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

VZ has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Tigress Financial increased their price objective on shares of Verizon Communications from $45.00 to $50.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 25th. UBS Group raised their price target on shares of Verizon Communications from $37.00 to $43.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 24th. Redburn Atlantic upgraded shares of Verizon Communications from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their price target for the company from $33.00 to $39.00 in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. Daiwa Capital Markets upgraded shares of Verizon Communications from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their price target for the company from $36.00 to $47.00 in a research note on Wednesday, January 24th. Finally, KeyCorp raised their price target on shares of Verizon Communications from $45.00 to $46.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 24th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $44.21.

Verizon Communications Stock Up 1.2 %

Verizon Communications stock opened at $39.68 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.42, a quick ratio of 0.65 and a current ratio of 0.71. Verizon Communications Inc. has a 52-week low of $30.14 and a 52-week high of $43.42. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $40.46 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $38.51. The firm has a market cap of $166.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.81, a PEG ratio of 2.84 and a beta of 0.41.

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, April 22nd. The cell phone carrier reported $1.15 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.12 by $0.03. The company had revenue of $33 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $33.23 billion. Verizon Communications had a net margin of 8.44% and a return on equity of 20.41%. Verizon Communications’s revenue for the quarter was up .3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.20 EPS. Equities analysts predict that Verizon Communications Inc. will post 4.6 EPS for the current year.

Verizon Communications Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 1st. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, April 10th will be given a dividend of $0.665 per share. This represents a $2.66 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.70%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, April 9th. Verizon Communications’s dividend payout ratio is presently 99.25%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Kyle Malady sold 24,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $40.80, for a total transaction of $979,200.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 35,201 shares in the company, valued at $1,436,200.80. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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).