Greenwood Capital Associates LLC Increases Stake in Motorola Solutions, Inc. $MSI

Greenwood Capital Associates LLC increased its position in shares of Motorola Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:MSI) by 47.1% during the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 13,539 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after buying an additional 4,334 shares during the period. Greenwood Capital Associates LLC’s holdings in Motorola Solutions were worth $6,191,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Motorola Solutions by 1.8% in the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 21,885,593 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $9,202,016,000 after purchasing an additional 384,479 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of Motorola Solutions by 1.3% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 7,681,622 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $3,237,985,000 after purchasing an additional 101,408 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Motorola Solutions by 1.2% in the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,386,899 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,839,569,000 after buying an additional 51,474 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. raised its stake in Motorola Solutions by 0.8% in the second quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. now owns 3,401,738 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,430,295,000 after buying an additional 27,206 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Alliancebernstein L.P. lifted its holdings in Motorola Solutions by 1.6% during the 1st quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 2,921,004 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $1,278,845,000 after buying an additional 47,368 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 84.17% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have recently commented on MSI shares. Evercore ISI increased their price objective on Motorola Solutions from $500.00 to $525.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, August 29th. Northcoast Research upgraded shares of Motorola Solutions from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $450.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Monday, December 1st. Weiss Ratings reissued a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Motorola Solutions in a report on Monday. Barclays lowered their target price on shares of Motorola Solutions from $509.00 to $495.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, October 31st. Finally, Piper Sandler restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $465.00 price objective (down previously from $495.00) on shares of Motorola Solutions in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Six analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Motorola Solutions currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $495.00.

Motorola Solutions Stock Performance

Shares of Motorola Solutions stock opened at $376.98 on Friday. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $388.59 and its 200-day simple moving average is $425.24. Motorola Solutions, Inc. has a 12 month low of $359.36 and a 12 month high of $492.22. The stock has a market capitalization of $62.79 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.26, a PEG ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 0.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.59, a current ratio of 1.03 and a quick ratio of 0.86.

Motorola Solutions (NYSE:MSI) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, October 31st. The communications equipment provider reported $4.06 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.85 by $0.21. Motorola Solutions had a net margin of 18.71% and a return on equity of 118.48%. The firm had revenue of $3.01 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.99 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $3.74 EPS. Motorola Solutions’s quarterly revenue was up 7.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Motorola Solutions, Inc. will post 13.55 earnings per share for the current year.

Motorola Solutions Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 15th. Investors of record on Monday, December 15th will be given a $1.21 dividend. This is a boost from Motorola Solutions’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.01. The ex-dividend date is Monday, December 15th. This represents a $4.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.3%. Motorola Solutions’s payout ratio is presently 38.84%.

Motorola Solutions Profile

Motorola Solutions, Inc is a provider of mission-critical communications and analytics solutions for public safety and commercial customers. The company designs, manufactures and supports a range of communications equipment and software aimed at enabling first responders, government agencies and enterprises to coordinate and operate reliably in high-pressure environments. Its offerings emphasize secure, resilient connectivity and situational awareness for organizations that require dependable voice, data and video communications.

Product lines include land mobile radio (LMR) systems and handheld and vehicle-mounted radios used by police, fire and emergency medical services; broadband push-to-talk and LTE-based solutions; command-and-control center software for incident management and records; and video security and analytics systems.