Midland Wealth Advisors LLC Has $520,000 Holdings in Verizon Communications Inc. $VZ

Midland Wealth Advisors LLC lowered its stake in shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) by 13.1% in the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 12,022 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock after selling 1,811 shares during the period. Midland Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Verizon Communications were worth $520,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. GQG Partners LLC raised its position in Verizon Communications by 303.9% in the 1st quarter. GQG Partners LLC now owns 49,859,967 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $2,261,648,000 after buying an additional 37,516,167 shares during the last quarter. Nuveen LLC purchased a new position in Verizon Communications during the 1st quarter worth $661,720,000. Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its stake in shares of Verizon Communications by 737.5% in the 1st quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 11,697,003 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $530,576,000 after acquiring an additional 10,300,369 shares in the last quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 301.2% in the first quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 8,504,920 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $385,750,000 after purchasing an additional 6,385,197 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 20.6% in the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 31,626,373 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $1,434,572,000 after purchasing an additional 5,392,416 shares during the last quarter. 62.06% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on shares of Verizon Communications from $47.00 to $48.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 22nd. Wall Street Zen lowered Verizon Communications from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, September 26th. BNP Paribas downgraded Verizon Communications from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 21st. The Goldman Sachs Group began coverage on Verizon Communications in a research report on Tuesday, September 2nd. They issued a “buy” rating and a $49.00 price objective on the stock. Finally, BNP Paribas Exane downgraded Verizon Communications from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $44.00 price objective for the company. in a research note on Tuesday, October 21st. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have assigned a Buy rating and thirteen have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $47.41.

Verizon Communications Stock Performance

Shares of VZ opened at $40.03 on Monday. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $41.86 and its 200 day simple moving average is $42.69. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.19, a quick ratio of 0.60 and a current ratio of 0.74. Verizon Communications Inc. has a 52-week low of $37.58 and a 52-week high of $47.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $168.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.03 and a beta of 0.35.

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The cell phone carrier reported $1.21 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.19 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $33.80 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $34.19 billion. Verizon Communications had a net margin of 14.43% and a return on equity of 19.31%. Verizon Communications’s revenue was up 1.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.19 EPS. Research analysts forecast that Verizon Communications Inc. will post 4.69 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Verizon Communications Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, November 3rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 10th were issued a dividend of $0.69 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, October 10th. This is a positive change from Verizon Communications’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.68. This represents a $2.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.9%. Verizon Communications’s payout ratio is presently 58.97%.

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).