AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) Shares Bought by West Branch Capital LLC

West Branch Capital LLC grew its holdings in shares of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) by 42.3% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 6,041 shares of the technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,797 shares during the quarter. West Branch Capital LLC’s holdings in AT&T were worth $171,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in T. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of AT&T by 1.0% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 642,859,644 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $14,637,914,000 after acquiring an additional 6,220,442 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of AT&T by 1.6% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 163,761,301 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $3,719,723,000 after acquiring an additional 2,640,644 shares during the last quarter. GQG Partners LLC lifted its position in AT&T by 37.3% in the fourth quarter. GQG Partners LLC now owns 96,779,385 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,203,667,000 after buying an additional 26,280,866 shares during the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its position in AT&T by 7.1% in the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 85,592,594 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,948,943,000 after buying an additional 5,649,277 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new position in AT&T in the fourth quarter valued at about $1,858,418,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 57.10% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have commented on T shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on shares of AT&T from $28.00 to $31.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 24th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on shares of AT&T from $28.00 to $30.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 24th. Tigress Financial boosted their price target on shares of AT&T from $32.00 to $34.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 29th. Morgan Stanley reiterated an “overweight” rating and set a $31.00 price target (up from $30.00) on shares of AT&T in a research note on Thursday, April 24th. Finally, Barclays boosted their price target on shares of AT&T from $27.00 to $30.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, April 25th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating, eighteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $28.71.

AT&T Stock Down 0.5%

T stock opened at $28.13 on Friday. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $27.41 and its 200 day moving average price is $25.63. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.00, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a current ratio of 0.66. AT&T Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $17.49 and a fifty-two week high of $29.03. The firm has a market capitalization of $202.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.88, a PEG ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 0.41.

AT&T (NYSE:T) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, April 23rd. The technology company reported $0.51 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.52 by ($0.01). The firm had revenue of $30.63 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $30.39 billion. AT&T had a return on equity of 13.97% and a net margin of 8.95%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 2.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.55 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that AT&T Inc. will post 2.14 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AT&T Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 1st. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th were paid a $0.2775 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $1.11 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.95%. AT&T’s dividend payout ratio is currently 68.10%.

AT&T Profile

AT&T, Inc is a holding company, which engages in the provision of telecommunications and technology services. It operates through the Communications and Latin America segments. The Communications segment offers wireless, wireline telecom, and broadband services to businesses and consumers located in the US and businesses globally.