Bryn Mawr Capital Management LLC Grows Position in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ)

Bryn Mawr Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) by 9.7% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 145,570 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock after purchasing an additional 12,916 shares during the period. Bryn Mawr Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Verizon Communications were worth $5,821,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in VZ. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 6.2% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 101,273,082 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $4,548,163,000 after purchasing an additional 5,936,009 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Verizon Communications by 2.2% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 95,824,245 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $4,289,054,000 after buying an additional 2,081,241 shares during the period. FMR LLC increased its position in shares of Verizon Communications by 2.0% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 29,074,297 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $1,305,727,000 after acquiring an additional 565,842 shares in the last quarter. Parnassus Investments LLC increased its position in shares of Verizon Communications by 2.8% in the third quarter. Parnassus Investments LLC now owns 18,161,563 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $815,636,000 after acquiring an additional 502,949 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Swiss National Bank raised its stake in shares of Verizon Communications by 0.4% in the 3rd quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 12,493,998 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $561,105,000 after acquiring an additional 46,100 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 62.06% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Verizon Communications news, CEO Kyle Malady sold 20,000 shares of Verizon Communications stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $40.54, for a total value of $810,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 45,675 shares in the company, valued at $1,851,664.50. The trade was a 30.45 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 39,085 shares of company stock valued at $1,582,995. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

VZ has been the topic of several research reports. StockNews.com lowered Verizon Communications from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Scotiabank raised their target price on Verizon Communications from $47.00 to $47.50 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Monday, January 27th. KeyCorp cut Verizon Communications from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Thursday, October 24th. Sanford C. Bernstein initiated coverage on shares of Verizon Communications in a research note on Tuesday, December 10th. They set a “market perform” rating and a $48.00 price objective on the stock. Finally, UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Verizon Communications from $44.00 to $45.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Verizon Communications has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $46.08.

Verizon Communications Stock Performance

Shares of VZ stock opened at $42.04 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $176.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 10.15, a PEG ratio of 4.28 and a beta of 0.45. Verizon Communications Inc. has a one year low of $37.58 and a one year high of $45.36. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $39.89 and its 200-day simple moving average is $41.58. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.21, a quick ratio of 0.59 and a current ratio of 0.63.

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) last released its earnings results on Friday, January 24th. The cell phone carrier reported $1.10 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.11 by ($0.01). Verizon Communications had a return on equity of 19.80% and a net margin of 12.99%. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.08 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Verizon Communications Inc. will post 4.69 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Verizon Communications Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, February 3rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 10th were paid a dividend of $0.6775 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 10th. This represents a $2.71 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.45%. Verizon Communications’s payout ratio is 65.46%.

Verizon Communications Company 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).