Wealthcare Advisory Partners LLC Purchases 7,235 Shares of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)

Wealthcare Advisory Partners LLC boosted its position in AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) by 12.0% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 67,340 shares of the technology company’s stock after buying an additional 7,235 shares during the period. Wealthcare Advisory Partners LLC’s holdings in AT&T were worth $1,130,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its holdings in AT&T by 185.6% during the third quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 52,613,513 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $790,301,000 after buying an additional 34,189,954 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its position in shares of AT&T by 130.5% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,515,546 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $863,884,000 after purchasing an additional 32,558,342 shares in the last quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System boosted its holdings in AT&T by 38.0% during the third quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System now owns 34,558,594 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $519,070,000 after purchasing an additional 9,518,478 shares during the last quarter. Barclays PLC grew its position in AT&T by 30.6% in the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 26,227,124 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $393,931,000 after purchasing an additional 6,137,909 shares in the last quarter. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC increased its stake in AT&T by 43.0% in the 3rd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 14,739,648 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $221,242,000 after buying an additional 4,432,136 shares during the last quarter. 57.10% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on T shares. StockNews.com lowered AT&T from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, May 3rd. Oppenheimer upgraded AT&T from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $21.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Friday, January 19th. Barclays upgraded AT&T from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $20.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Monday, April 29th. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of AT&T from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $21.00 price target for the company in a research report on Tuesday, March 5th. Finally, Citigroup boosted their target price on shares of AT&T from $19.00 to $20.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 1st. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $20.81.

AT&T Stock Performance

Shares of T opened at $17.08 on Wednesday. AT&T Inc. has a 52-week low of $13.43 and a 52-week high of $18.16. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $16.98 and its 200 day simple moving average is $16.69. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.06, a quick ratio of 0.63 and a current ratio of 0.68. The stock has a market capitalization of $122.47 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.19, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.32 and a beta of 0.57.

AT&T (NYSE:T) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 24th. The technology company reported $0.55 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.53 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $30.03 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $30.62 billion. AT&T had a net margin of 11.13% and a return on equity of 14.63%. AT&T’s revenue was down .4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.60 earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that AT&T Inc. will post 2.24 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AT&T Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, May 1st. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, April 10th were issued a $0.2775 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, April 9th. This represents a $1.11 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.50%. AT&T’s payout ratio is currently 59.68%.

AT&T Company Profile

AT&T Inc provides telecommunications and technology services worldwide. The company operates through two segments, Communications and Latin America. The Communications segment offers wireless voice and data communications services; and sells handsets, wireless data cards, wireless computing devices, carrying cases/protective covers, and wireless chargers through its own company-owned stores, agents, and third-party retail stores.