Whittier Trust Co. Lowers Holdings in Motorola Solutions, Inc. $MSI

Whittier Trust Co. lowered its stake in shares of Motorola Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:MSI) by 20.1% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 59,384 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after selling 14,905 shares during the quarter. Whittier Trust Co.’s holdings in Motorola Solutions were worth $26,895,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the stock. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Motorola Solutions during the second quarter worth approximately $872,307,000. Marshall Wace LLP purchased a new stake in shares of Motorola Solutions during the 2nd quarter valued at $230,743,000. Voya Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Motorola Solutions by 116.5% during the 3rd quarter. Voya Investment Management LLC now owns 841,463 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $384,793,000 after buying an additional 452,822 shares during the last quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd raised its position in shares of Motorola Solutions by 54.5% in the 2nd quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd now owns 1,195,796 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $502,784,000 after buying an additional 422,039 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. raised 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 worth $9,202,016,000 after buying an additional 384,479 shares during the period. 84.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

MSI has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Piper Sandler upgraded Motorola Solutions from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and dropped their price target for the stock from $465.00 to $443.00 in a research note on Monday, January 5th. Barclays dropped their target price on shares of Motorola Solutions from $509.00 to $495.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, October 31st. 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 report on Monday, December 1st. Finally, Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Motorola Solutions in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Motorola Solutions presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $491.86.

Motorola Solutions Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:MSI opened at $401.60 on Friday. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $378.22 and its 200 day simple moving average is $421.58. The company has a market cap of $66.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.23, a PEG ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 1.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.59, a quick ratio of 0.86 and a current ratio of 1.03. Motorola Solutions, Inc. has a one year low of $359.36 and a one year high of $492.22.

Motorola Solutions (NYSE:MSI) last released 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. The firm had revenue of $3.01 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.99 billion. Motorola Solutions had a return on equity of 118.48% and a net margin of 18.71%.Motorola Solutions’s quarterly revenue was up 7.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $3.74 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Motorola Solutions, Inc. will post 13.55 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Motorola Solutions Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 15th. Investors of record on Monday, December 15th were paid a dividend of $1.21 per share. This is a positive change from Motorola Solutions’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.01. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 15th. This represents a $4.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.2%. 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.