Wetzel Investment Advisors Inc. Purchases New Stake in AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)

Wetzel Investment Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 9,868 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $166,000.

Other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. State Street Corp grew its holdings in AT&T by 0.5% in the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 287,304,512 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $5,530,602,000 after buying an additional 1,567,008 shares in the last quarter. Newport Trust Company LLC grew its holdings in AT&T by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Newport Trust Company LLC now owns 199,998,040 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $3,003,971,000 after buying an additional 673,043 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley grew its holdings in AT&T by 37.3% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 109,639,428 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,018,462,000 after buying an additional 29,769,976 shares in the last quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC grew its holdings in AT&T by 85,003.0% in the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 76,836,936 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,414,568,000 after buying an additional 76,746,649 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp grew its holdings in shares of AT&T by 2.5% during the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 75,158,354 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,128,878,000 after purchasing an additional 1,828,237 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 57.10% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages recently weighed in on T. Tigress Financial upped their price objective on AT&T from $28.00 to $29.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price objective on AT&T from $23.00 to $24.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 25th. Royal Bank of Canada restated a “sector perform” rating and set a $17.00 price objective on shares of AT&T in a research report on Thursday, April 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded AT&T from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $18.00 to $21.00 in a research report on Thursday, February 1st. Finally, Oppenheimer upgraded AT&T from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $21.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Friday, January 19th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, AT&T has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $20.68.

AT&T Stock Up 1.1 %

AT&T stock traded up $0.18 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $16.51. The stock had a trading volume of 45,820,353 shares, compared to its average volume of 33,811,916. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.09, a quick ratio of 0.67 and a current ratio of 0.71. AT&T Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $13.43 and a fifty-two week high of $18.72. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $17.00 and its 200-day simple moving average is $16.49. The firm has a market capitalization of $118.09 billion, a PE ratio of 8.42, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.46 and a beta of 0.57.

AT&T (NYSE:T) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, January 24th. The technology company reported $0.54 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.55 by ($0.01). The company had revenue of $32 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $31.44 billion. AT&T had a net margin of 11.76% and a return on equity of 15.39%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 2.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.61 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that AT&T Inc. will post 2.21 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AT&T Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 1st. Investors of record on Wednesday, April 10th will be given a dividend of $0.2775 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, April 9th. This represents a $1.11 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.72%. AT&T’s payout ratio is 56.63%.

About AT&T

AT&T Inc provides telecommunications and technology services worldwide. The company operates through two segments, Communications and Latin America. The Communications segment offers wireless voice and data communications services; and sells handsets, wireless data cards, wireless computing devices, carrying cases/protective covers, and wireless chargers through its own company-owned stores, agents, and third-party retail stores.