142,005 Shares in Verizon Communications Inc. $VZ Acquired by Global Retirement Partners LLC

Global Retirement Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 142,005 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock, valued at approximately $6,145,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Kestra Investment Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Verizon Communications by 121.8% during the first quarter. Kestra Investment Management LLC now owns 176,531 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $8,007,000 after purchasing an additional 96,931 shares in the last quarter. Cadinha & Co. LLC increased its stake in Verizon Communications by 2,916.8% during the 2nd quarter. Cadinha & Co. LLC now owns 347,716 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $15,046,000 after buying an additional 336,190 shares during the period. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale increased its stake in Verizon Communications by 11.0% during the 2nd quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale now owns 7,297,469 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $309,551,000 after buying an additional 722,559 shares during the period. Element Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Verizon Communications during the 1st quarter worth about $2,799,000. Finally, Ritholtz Wealth Management lifted its stake in shares of Verizon Communications by 23.8% in the 2nd quarter. Ritholtz Wealth Management now owns 205,416 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $8,888,000 after acquiring an additional 39,445 shares during the period. 62.06% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on VZ shares. BNP Paribas lowered Verizon Communications from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 21st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on Verizon Communications from $49.00 to $47.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Weiss Ratings cut shares of Verizon Communications from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research report on Friday, October 24th. BNP Paribas Exane downgraded shares of Verizon Communications from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $44.00 price target for the company. in a report on Tuesday, October 21st. Finally, Scotiabank raised their price objective on shares of Verizon Communications from $50.50 to $51.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have given a Buy rating and thirteen have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $47.41.

Verizon Communications Stock Down 2.3%

Shares of NYSE:VZ opened at $40.29 on Tuesday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $41.20 and a 200 day simple moving average of $42.50. Verizon Communications Inc. has a 52 week low of $37.58 and a 52 week high of $47.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.19, a quick ratio of 0.60 and a current ratio of 0.74. The company has a market cap of $169.88 billion, a PE ratio of 8.61, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.03 and a beta of 0.35.

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) last announced its 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. The company had revenue of $33.82 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $34.19 billion. Verizon Communications had a net margin of 14.43% and a return on equity of 19.31%. The company’s revenue was up 1.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.19 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Verizon Communications Inc. will post 4.69 earnings per share for the current year.

Verizon Communications Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, November 3rd. Investors of record on Friday, October 10th were given a dividend of $0.69 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, October 10th. This is a positive change from Verizon Communications’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.68. This represents a $2.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.9%. Verizon Communications’s payout ratio is presently 58.97%.

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).