Mission Wealth Management LP Sells 290 Shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ)

Mission Wealth Management LP cut its position in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) by 1.0% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 30,125 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock after selling 290 shares during the quarter. Mission Wealth Management LP’s holdings in Verizon Communications were worth $1,136,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Verizon Communications by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 351,625,025 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $11,396,167,000 after buying an additional 930,367 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 4.8% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 98,027,542 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $3,151,714,000 after purchasing an additional 4,527,387 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp grew its holdings in shares of 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 buying an additional 2,015,139 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its position in Verizon Communications by 17.0% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 28,400,326 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $920,455,000 after buying an additional 4,134,150 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Envestnet Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in Verizon Communications by 17.6% in the 3rd quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 9,261,791 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $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.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

VZ has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Tigress Financial lifted their price objective on shares of Verizon Communications from $45.00 to $50.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 25th. StockNews.com raised shares of Verizon Communications from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 25th. UBS Group raised their price objective on Verizon Communications from $37.00 to $43.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 24th. Oppenheimer reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $48.00 price target on shares of Verizon Communications in a research report on Tuesday, April 23rd. Finally, Citigroup boosted their price target on Verizon Communications from $45.00 to $47.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 30th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $44.21.

Verizon Communications Stock Down 0.8 %

Verizon Communications stock opened at $39.19 on Thursday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $40.40 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $38.74. The company has a quick ratio of 0.67, a current ratio of 0.71 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.42. The stock has a market cap of $164.96 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.62, a P/E/G ratio of 2.91 and a beta of 0.41. Verizon Communications Inc. has a twelve month low of $30.14 and a twelve month high of $43.42.

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

Verizon Communications Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, May 1st. Investors of record on Wednesday, April 10th were paid a $0.665 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, April 9th. This represents a $2.66 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.79%. Verizon Communications’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 99.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Kyle Malady sold 24,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $40.80, for a total transaction of $979,200.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 35,201 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,436,200.80. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.03% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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).