Saxon Interests Inc. Invests $549,000 in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ)

Saxon Interests Inc. bought a new position in shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund bought 14,564 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock, valued at approximately $549,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in VZ. CGC Financial Services LLC bought a new position in Verizon Communications in the second quarter valued at approximately $32,000. HBC Financial Services PLLC grew its stake in shares of Verizon Communications by 320.0% during the third quarter. HBC Financial Services PLLC now owns 1,050 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $34,000 after buying an additional 800 shares during the last quarter. RVW Wealth LLC bought a new stake in shares of Verizon Communications during the third quarter worth $36,000. Financial Management Professionals Inc. grew its stake in shares of Verizon Communications by 58.4% during the fourth quarter. Financial Management Professionals Inc. now owns 1,096 shares of the cell phone carrier’s stock worth $41,000 after buying an additional 404 shares during the last quarter. Finally, True Wealth Design LLC acquired a new position in shares of Verizon Communications during the fourth quarter worth $42,000. 62.06% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

VZ has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Verizon Communications from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $46.00 price target on the stock in a report on Thursday, January 4th. Raymond James lifted their price target on shares of Verizon Communications from $42.00 to $46.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 24th. KeyCorp boosted their target price on shares of Verizon Communications from $45.00 to $46.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 24th. Tigress Financial boosted their target price on shares of Verizon Communications from $45.00 to $50.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 25th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on shares of Verizon Communications from $40.00 to $44.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 24th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $43.86.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Kyle Malady sold 24,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $40.80, for a total value of $979,200.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 35,201 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,436,200.80. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Verizon Communications Stock Performance

VZ traded up $0.42 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $41.96. The company had a trading volume of 19,771,402 shares, compared to its average volume of 18,609,096. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 0.65 and a current ratio of 0.69. The stock has a market cap of $176.41 billion, a PE ratio of 15.20, a P/E/G ratio of 3.37 and a beta of 0.40. Verizon Communications Inc. has a 12-month low of $30.14 and a 12-month high of $43.21. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $40.57 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $37.34.

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, January 23rd. The cell phone carrier reported $1.08 EPS for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.08. The company had revenue of $35.10 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $34.60 billion. Verizon Communications had a net margin of 8.67% and a return on equity of 20.71%. Verizon Communications’s revenue was down .6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.19 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Verizon Communications Inc. will post 4.61 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Verizon Communications Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 1st. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, April 10th will be paid a $0.665 dividend. This represents a $2.66 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.34%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, April 9th. Verizon Communications’s dividend payout ratio is presently 96.38%.

Verizon Communications Company 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).