Cooke & Bieler LP Sells 63,953 Shares of Verizon Communications Inc. $VZ

Cooke & Bieler LP lowered its position in shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) by 2.4% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 2,587,101 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock after selling 63,953 shares during the period. Cooke & Bieler LP owned approximately 0.06% of Verizon Communications worth $111,944,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Twin City Private Wealth LLC increased its position in shares of Verizon Communications by 3.3% during the second quarter. Twin City Private Wealth LLC now owns 25,652 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $1,110,000 after acquiring an additional 830 shares in the last quarter. Syverson Strege & Co bought a new stake in shares of Verizon Communications in the 2nd quarter worth $592,000. Bridgewealth Advisory Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of Verizon Communications in the 2nd quarter worth $372,000. Bordeaux Wealth Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 9.6% in the 2nd quarter. Bordeaux Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 6,050 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $262,000 after purchasing an additional 529 shares in the last quarter. Finally, GAM Holding AG bought a new stake in Verizon Communications in the 2nd quarter worth about $433,000. Institutional investors own 62.06% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

VZ has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on Verizon Communications from $47.00 to $48.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 22nd. Arete Research upgraded shares of Verizon Communications to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 8th. BNP Paribas Exane lowered shares of Verizon Communications from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $44.00 price target for the company. in a research note on Tuesday, October 21st. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on shares of Verizon Communications from $42.00 to $43.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 10th. Finally, Scotiabank lifted their target price on shares of Verizon Communications from $50.50 to $51.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have given a Buy rating and thirteen have issued a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $47.41.

Verizon Communications Trading Up 2.1%

Shares of VZ stock opened at $39.77 on Friday. Verizon Communications Inc. has a 1 year low of $37.58 and a 1 year high of $47.35. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $42.31 and a 200-day moving average price of $42.84. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.19, a current ratio of 0.74 and a quick ratio of 0.60. The company has a market cap of $167.67 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.50, a PEG ratio of 3.03 and a beta of 0.37.

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The cell phone carrier reported $1.21 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.19 by $0.02. Verizon Communications had a return on equity of 19.31% and a net margin of 14.43%.The business had revenue of $33.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $34.19 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.19 earnings per share. Verizon Communications’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts predict that Verizon Communications Inc. will post 4.69 earnings per share for the current year.

Verizon Communications Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, November 3rd. Investors of record on Friday, October 10th will be paid a dividend of $0.69 per share. This is a boost from Verizon Communications’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.68. The ex-dividend date is Friday, October 10th. This represents a $2.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 6.9%. Verizon Communications’s dividend payout ratio is presently 58.97%.

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).