Pure Financial Advisors LLC Reduces Position in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ)

Pure Financial Advisors LLC reduced its position in shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) by 15.0% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 10,815 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock after selling 1,915 shares during the quarter. Pure Financial Advisors LLC’s holdings in Verizon Communications were worth $432,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in VZ. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of Verizon Communications by 6.2% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 101,273,082 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $4,548,163,000 after purchasing an additional 5,936,009 shares during the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC grew its position in shares of Verizon Communications by 4,520.3% in the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 4,815,534 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $216,266,000 after buying an additional 4,711,309 shares during the last quarter. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund purchased a new position in shares of Verizon Communications during the third quarter valued at approximately $177,799,000. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications by 184.3% during the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 5,428,540 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock valued at $217,087,000 after acquiring an additional 3,519,258 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Janus Henderson Group PLC lifted its stake in Verizon Communications by 77.1% in the third quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 6,101,616 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $274,052,000 after acquiring an additional 2,656,396 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 62.06% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

VZ has been the subject of several research reports. Scotiabank upped their price objective on shares of Verizon Communications from $46.50 to $47.25 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, October 18th. Tigress Financial upped their target price on Verizon Communications from $52.00 to $55.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 1st. Bank of America raised their target price on Verizon Communications from $41.00 to $45.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. StockNews.com downgraded Verizon Communications from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, KeyCorp cut shares of Verizon Communications from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Thursday, October 24th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $46.54.

Verizon Communications Price Performance

Shares of NYSE VZ opened at $39.04 on Wednesday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $41.00 and a 200 day moving average of $41.68. The company has a quick ratio of 0.62, a current ratio of 0.66 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32. Verizon Communications Inc. has a twelve month low of $37.58 and a twelve month high of $45.36. The firm has a market cap of $164.34 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.83, a PEG ratio of 3.25 and a beta of 0.46.

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 analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.18 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $33.30 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $33.42 billion. Verizon Communications had a return on equity of 20.05% and a net margin of 7.30%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up .9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.22 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts expect that Verizon Communications Inc. will post 4.59 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Verizon Communications Cuts Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, February 3rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 10th will be paid a dividend of $0.6775 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 10th. This represents a $2.71 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.94%. Verizon Communications’s dividend payout ratio is presently 116.81%.

About Verizon Communications

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).