Sandy Spring Bank Purchases 13,599 Shares of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)

Sandy Spring Bank increased its position in shares of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) by 39.8% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 47,793 shares of the technology company’s stock after acquiring an additional 13,599 shares during the period. Sandy Spring Bank’s holdings in AT&T were worth $1,088,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Assetmark Inc. grew its stake in AT&T by 4,986.1% during the fourth quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 9,913,960 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $225,741,000 after acquiring an additional 9,719,036 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its stake in AT&T by 7.1% during the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 85,592,594 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,948,943,000 after acquiring an additional 5,649,277 shares in the last quarter. Amundi grew its stake in AT&T by 19.8% during the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 33,963,826 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $753,318,000 after acquiring an additional 5,614,168 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in AT&T by 2.3% during 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. Finally, ANTIPODES PARTNERS Ltd purchased a new position in AT&T during the fourth quarter valued at $65,288,000. 57.10% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

AT&T Trading Down 0.3 %

Shares of T opened at $26.77 on Friday. AT&T Inc. has a 1-year low of $15.94 and a 1-year high of $27.97. The company has a 50-day moving average of $25.02 and a 200 day moving average of $23.23. The firm has a market capitalization of $192.14 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.96, a PEG ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 0.56. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.00, a current ratio of 0.66 and a quick ratio of 0.62.

AT&T (NYSE:T) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, January 27th. The technology company reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.48 by $0.06. AT&T had a net margin of 8.95% and a return on equity of 13.97%. On average, research analysts expect that AT&T Inc. will post 2.14 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have commented on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on shares of AT&T from $27.00 to $28.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of AT&T from $25.00 to $28.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 4th. Sanford C. Bernstein lifted their price objective on shares of AT&T from $28.00 to $29.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 28th. DZ Bank raised shares of AT&T from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $27.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 29th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised shares of AT&T from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $19.00 to $28.00 in a research note on Monday, December 16th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, seventeen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $26.79.

About AT&T

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.