Brophy Wealth Management LLC Purchases New Position in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ)

Brophy Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 27,739 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock, valued at approximately $1,246,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of VZ. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 6.2% in the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 101,273,082 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $4,548,163,000 after purchasing an additional 5,936,009 shares during the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC raised its position in Verizon Communications by 4,520.3% in the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 4,815,534 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $216,266,000 after purchasing an additional 4,711,309 shares during the last quarter. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund acquired a new position in Verizon Communications in the third quarter valued at $177,799,000. Janus Henderson Group PLC raised its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 77.1% in the third quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 6,101,616 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $274,052,000 after buying an additional 2,656,396 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Bank of Montreal Can grew its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 18.6% during the second quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 13,016,271 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $536,791,000 after buying an additional 2,040,247 shares during the last quarter. 62.06% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

VZ has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Bank of America increased their price objective on Verizon Communications from $41.00 to $45.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 26th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on shares of Verizon Communications from $42.00 to $46.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Monday, September 23rd. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Verizon Communications from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Sunday. Tigress Financial raised their price objective on shares of Verizon Communications from $52.00 to $55.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 1st. Finally, Raymond James increased their target price on Verizon Communications from $44.00 to $48.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $46.37.

Verizon Communications Stock Performance

Shares of VZ stock opened at $42.37 on Tuesday. The company has a current ratio of 0.66, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32. The company has a market capitalization of $178.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.26, a PEG ratio of 3.08 and a beta of 0.44. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $42.70 and a 200 day moving average price of $41.83. Verizon Communications Inc. has a twelve month low of $36.46 and a twelve month high of $45.36.

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The cell phone carrier reported $1.19 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.18 by $0.01. Verizon Communications had a return on equity of 20.05% and a net margin of 7.30%. The company had revenue of $33.30 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $33.42 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.22 EPS. Verizon Communications’s revenue was up .9% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts forecast that Verizon Communications Inc. will post 4.61 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Verizon Communications Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, February 3rd. Investors of record on Friday, January 10th will be given a dividend of $0.6775 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 10th. This represents a $2.71 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.40%. Verizon Communications’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 116.81%.

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).