Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund Purchases New Holdings in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ)

Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund bought a new position in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 3,959,000 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock, valued at approximately $177,799,000. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund owned approximately 0.09% of Verizon Communications as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Alliance Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its position in Verizon Communications by 1.4% in the 2nd quarter. Alliance Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 17,760 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $732,000 after buying an additional 241 shares in the last quarter. Fermata Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 4.5% during the 3rd quarter. Fermata Advisors LLC now owns 5,626 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $253,000 after purchasing an additional 243 shares in the last quarter. Austin Private Wealth LLC raised its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 3.0% during the 3rd quarter. Austin Private Wealth LLC now owns 8,450 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $379,000 after purchasing an additional 243 shares in the last quarter. Semmax Financial Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 0.4% during the 2nd quarter. Semmax Financial Advisors Inc. now owns 54,926 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $2,240,000 after purchasing an additional 246 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cary Street Partners Asset Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 3.4% during the 3rd quarter. Cary Street Partners Asset Management LLC now owns 7,628 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $343,000 after purchasing an additional 249 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 62.06% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on VZ. Raymond James raised their price target on shares of Verizon Communications from $44.00 to $48.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Verizon Communications from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Scotiabank raised their target price on shares of Verizon Communications from $46.50 to $47.25 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, October 18th. KeyCorp lowered shares of Verizon Communications from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 24th. Finally, Tigress Financial raised their target price on shares of Verizon Communications from $52.00 to $55.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 1st. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $46.37.

Verizon Communications Price Performance

Shares of Verizon Communications stock opened at $44.37 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a current ratio of 0.66. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $42.89 and its 200-day simple moving average is $41.62. Verizon Communications Inc. has a twelve month low of $36.46 and a twelve month high of $45.36. The firm has a market cap of $186.78 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.13, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.19 and a beta of 0.43.

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The cell phone carrier reported $1.19 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.18 by $0.01. Verizon Communications had a net margin of 7.30% and a return on equity of 20.05%. The firm had revenue of $33.30 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $33.42 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.22 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up .9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that Verizon Communications Inc. will post 4.61 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Verizon Communications Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 1st. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th were issued a dividend of $0.678 per share. This is an increase from Verizon Communications’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.67. This represents a $2.71 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.11%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. Verizon Communications’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 116.81%.

Verizon Communications 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).