Mesirow Financial Investment Management Inc. Lowers Stake in AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)

Mesirow Financial Investment Management Inc. cut its holdings in AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) by 2.2% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 86,450 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 1,903 shares during the period. Mesirow Financial Investment Management Inc.’s holdings in AT&T were worth $1,969,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in T. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of 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 worth $3,532,684,000 after purchasing an additional 3,630,972 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp raised its position in 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 worth $1,948,943,000 after buying an additional 5,649,277 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its position in AT&T by 1.9% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 60,986,064 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,341,693,000 after buying an additional 1,149,688 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of AT&T by 0.8% in the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 53,057,676 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,208,123,000 after acquiring an additional 414,984 shares during the period. Finally, Swiss National Bank boosted 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 valued at $468,217,000 after acquiring an additional 104,700 shares in the last quarter. 57.10% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts recently issued reports on T shares. Argus raised shares of AT&T from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $27.00 price target for the company in a report on Thursday, January 16th. BNP Paribas raised AT&T from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $28.50 target price for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on AT&T from $25.00 to $28.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 4th. Morgan Stanley upgraded AT&T from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $19.00 to $28.00 in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Scotiabank boosted their target price on shares of AT&T from $26.00 to $28.50 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, March 3rd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating, seventeen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, AT&T presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $26.74.

AT&T Trading Up 1.6 %

AT&T stock opened at $27.15 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $24.30 and a 200 day moving average price of $22.80. The company has a current ratio of 0.66, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.00. The stock has a market cap of $194.85 billion, a PE ratio of 18.22, a P/E/G ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 0.56. AT&T Inc. has a 52 week low of $15.94 and a 52 week high of $27.97.

AT&T (NYSE:T) last released its earnings results on Monday, January 27th. The technology company reported $0.54 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.48 by $0.06. AT&T had a return on equity of 13.97% and a net margin of 8.95%. Equities research analysts predict that AT&T Inc. will post 2.14 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

AT&T Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, February 3rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 10th were paid a $0.2775 dividend. This represents a $1.11 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.09%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 10th. AT&T’s dividend payout ratio is currently 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.