Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors LLC Buys 8,041 Shares of Motorola Solutions, Inc. $MSI

Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors LLC lifted its position in Motorola Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:MSI) by 66.0% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 20,225 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 8,041 shares during the quarter. Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors LLC’s holdings in Motorola Solutions were worth $9,249,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in MSI. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Motorola Solutions by 1.8% during the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 21,885,593 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $9,202,016,000 after buying an additional 384,479 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Motorola Solutions by 1.3% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 7,681,622 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $3,237,985,000 after acquiring an additional 101,408 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in Motorola Solutions by 1.2% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,386,899 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $1,839,569,000 after acquiring an additional 51,474 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. increased its holdings in Motorola Solutions by 0.8% during the 2nd quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. now owns 3,401,738 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,430,295,000 after purchasing an additional 27,206 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new position in Motorola Solutions in the 2nd quarter valued at $872,307,000. 84.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Motorola Solutions Stock Down 0.6%

Shares of NYSE:MSI opened at $402.62 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $380.78 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $421.17. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.59, a quick ratio of 0.86 and a current ratio of 1.03. The company has a market capitalization of $67.06 billion, a PE ratio of 32.31, a PEG ratio of 3.03 and a beta of 1.00. Motorola Solutions, Inc. has a 52 week low of $359.36 and a 52 week high of $492.22.

Motorola Solutions (NYSE:MSI) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, October 31st. The communications equipment provider reported $4.06 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.85 by $0.21. The company had revenue of $3.01 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.99 billion. Motorola Solutions had a net margin of 18.71% and a return on equity of 118.48%. The firm’s revenue was up 7.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.74 EPS. Analysts forecast that Motorola Solutions, Inc. will post 13.55 earnings per share for the current year.

Motorola Solutions Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 15th were given a dividend of $1.21 per share. This is an increase from Motorola Solutions’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.01. This represents a $4.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.2%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 15th. Motorola Solutions’s payout ratio is 38.84%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of Motorola Solutions from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Piper Sandler upgraded Motorola Solutions from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and lowered their price objective for the stock from $465.00 to $443.00 in a research report on Monday, January 5th. Northcoast Research upgraded shares of Motorola Solutions from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $450.00 price target for the company in a research report on Monday, December 1st. Finally, Barclays reduced their price objective on shares of Motorola Solutions from $509.00 to $495.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $491.86.

About Motorola Solutions

Motorola Solutions, Inc is a provider of mission-critical communications and analytics solutions for public safety and commercial customers. The company designs, manufactures and supports a range of communications equipment and software aimed at enabling first responders, government agencies and enterprises to coordinate and operate reliably in high-pressure environments. Its offerings emphasize secure, resilient connectivity and situational awareness for organizations that require dependable voice, data and video communications.

Product lines include land mobile radio (LMR) systems and handheld and vehicle-mounted radios used by police, fire and emergency medical services; broadband push-to-talk and LTE-based solutions; command-and-control center software for incident management and records; and video security and analytics systems.