Providence First Trust Co Buys Shares of 43,721 AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)

Providence First Trust Co purchased a new position in AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm purchased 43,721 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $996,000.

Other 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 worth $3,532,684,000 after purchasing an additional 3,630,972 shares during the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its holdings in shares of AT&T by 7.1% during the 4th 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 buying an additional 5,649,277 shares during the period. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in shares of AT&T by 1.9% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 60,986,064 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,341,693,000 after buying an additional 1,149,688 shares during the period. Swiss National Bank grew its holdings in shares of AT&T by 0.5% in the third quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 21,282,584 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $468,217,000 after acquiring an additional 104,700 shares during the period. Finally, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. lifted 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 during the period. 57.10% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on the company. BNP Paribas upgraded AT&T from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $28.50 price target for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. Tigress Financial boosted their target price on shares of AT&T from $30.00 to $32.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 4th. Scotiabank increased their price target on shares of AT&T from $24.00 to $26.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of AT&T from $25.00 to $28.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 4th. Finally, Barclays raised their target price on AT&T from $24.00 to $27.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 4th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating, eighteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $26.33.

AT&T Trading Up 2.0 %

Shares of T opened at $27.45 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $197.01 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.42, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 0.59. 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 Inc. has a 1 year low of $15.94 and a 1 year high of $27.49. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $23.91 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $22.54.

AT&T (NYSE:T) last posted its earnings results on Monday, January 27th. The technology company reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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, equities analysts expect that AT&T Inc. will post 2.14 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

AT&T Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, February 3rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 10th were issued a $0.2775 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 10th. This represents a $1.11 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.04%. AT&T’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 74.50%.

AT&T 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.