Meridian Financial Partners LLC Invests $204,000 in AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)

Meridian Financial Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) in the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 9,251 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $204,000.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in AT&T by 0.4% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 624,994,998 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $10,999,912,000 after buying an additional 2,588,539 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its holdings in AT&T by 7.4% in the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 81,076,641 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,549,375,000 after buying an additional 5,592,123 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its holdings in AT&T by 2.7% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 60,109,127 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,148,689,000 after buying an additional 1,569,374 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its holdings in AT&T by 2.0% in the second quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 51,558,884 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $985,307,000 after buying an additional 1,007,228 shares during the period. Finally, LSV Asset Management lifted its holdings in AT&T by 1.1% in the second quarter. LSV Asset Management now owns 30,092,610 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $575,070,000 after buying an additional 315,580 shares during the period. 57.10% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Moffett Nathanson lifted their target price on shares of AT&T from $17.00 to $18.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 15th. Scotiabank lowered shares of AT&T from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 6th. Redburn Atlantic upgraded shares of AT&T to a “strong sell” rating in a report on Monday, September 16th. Oppenheimer lifted their target price on shares of AT&T from $21.00 to $23.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, July 25th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on shares of AT&T from $22.00 to $25.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, October 14th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating, ten have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, AT&T presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $22.69.

AT&T Trading Up 0.6 %

NYSE:T opened at $21.85 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.70, a quick ratio of 0.66 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.05. AT&T Inc. has a 12 month low of $14.74 and a 12 month high of $22.34. The company has a market cap of $156.67 billion, a PE ratio of 11.75, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.63 and a beta of 0.60. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $20.95 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $18.96.

AT&T (NYSE:T) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, July 24th. The technology company reported $0.57 EPS for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.57. AT&T had a net margin of 10.41% and a return on equity of 14.16%. The business had revenue of $29.80 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $30.05 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.63 EPS. The firm’s revenue was down .3% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts forecast that AT&T Inc. will post 2.22 earnings per share for the current year.

AT&T Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 1st. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th will be paid a dividend of $0.2775 per share. This represents a $1.11 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.08%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, October 10th. AT&T’s dividend payout ratio is presently 59.68%.

AT&T Company Profile

AT&T Inc provides telecommunications and technology services worldwide. The company operates through two segments, Communications and Latin America. The Communications segment offers wireless voice and data communications services; and sells handsets, wireless data cards, wireless computing devices, carrying cases/protective covers, and wireless chargers through its own company-owned stores, agents, and third-party retail stores.