bLong Financial LLC Invests $375,000 in AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)

bLong Financial LLC bought a new position in AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 16,471 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $375,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in AT&T by 2.3% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 161,120,657 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $3,532,684,000 after acquiring an additional 3,630,972 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in AT&T by 1.9% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 60,986,064 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,341,693,000 after acquiring an additional 1,149,688 shares in the last quarter. Swiss National Bank boosted its holdings in AT&T by 0.5% in the third quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 21,282,584 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $468,217,000 after acquiring an additional 104,700 shares in the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. boosted its holdings in AT&T by 1.9% in the fourth quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 17,543,563 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $399,467,000 after acquiring an additional 325,073 shares in the last quarter. Finally, National Pension Service boosted its holdings in AT&T by 15.8% in the third quarter. National Pension Service now owns 15,769,707 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $346,934,000 after acquiring an additional 2,152,016 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 57.10% of the company’s stock.

AT&T Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:T opened at $25.88 on Friday. AT&T Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $15.94 and a fifty-two week high of $25.93. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $23.23 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $22.04. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.00, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a current ratio of 0.66. The firm has a market cap of $185.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.37, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.79 and a beta of 0.59.

AT&T (NYSE:T) last issued its earnings results on Monday, January 27th. The technology company reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.48 by $0.06. AT&T had a return on equity of 13.97% and a net margin of 8.95%. On average, analysts expect that AT&T Inc. will post 2.15 earnings per share for the current year.

AT&T Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, February 3rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 10th were given a $0.2775 dividend. This represents a $1.11 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.29%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 10th. AT&T’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 74.50%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms recently weighed in on T. Sanford C. Bernstein lifted their price target on shares of AT&T from $28.00 to $29.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 28th. New Street Research upgraded shares of AT&T from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. UBS Group raised their price objective on AT&T from $25.00 to $30.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. BNP Paribas raised AT&T from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $28.50 price objective for the company in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Scotiabank raised their price objective on AT&T from $24.00 to $26.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 28th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating, eighteen have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $26.33.

AT&T Company 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.