AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) Shares Acquired by Russell Investments Group Ltd.

Russell Investments Group Ltd. boosted its stake in AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) by 20.0% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 12,044,177 shares of the technology company’s stock after acquiring an additional 2,007,923 shares during the period. Russell Investments Group Ltd.’s holdings in AT&T were worth $274,207,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in T. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of AT&T by 1.0% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 642,859,644 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $14,637,914,000 after acquiring an additional 6,220,442 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in AT&T by 1.6% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 163,761,301 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $3,719,723,000 after acquiring an additional 2,640,644 shares during the period. GQG Partners LLC lifted its holdings in AT&T by 37.3% in the fourth quarter. GQG Partners LLC now owns 96,779,385 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,203,667,000 after acquiring an additional 26,280,866 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its stake 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 worth $1,948,943,000 after purchasing an additional 5,649,277 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of AT&T in the fourth quarter valued at about $1,858,418,000. 57.10% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price target on AT&T from $27.00 to $28.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Scotiabank increased their price objective on shares of AT&T from $26.00 to $28.50 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, March 3rd. UBS Group lifted their target price on shares of AT&T from $25.00 to $30.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of AT&T from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price target for the company from $19.00 to $28.00 in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Oppenheimer lifted their price objective on AT&T from $27.00 to $32.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating, seventeen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $27.21.

AT&T Stock Performance

Shares of T stock opened at $26.65 on Friday. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $26.26 and its 200-day simple moving average is $23.73. The company has a market cap of $191.27 billion, a PE ratio of 17.88, a P/E/G ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 0.42. AT&T Inc. has a 52 week low of $15.94 and a 52 week high of $29.03. The company has a current ratio of 0.66, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.00.

AT&T (NYSE:T) last announced 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%. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that AT&T Inc. will post 2.14 EPS for the current year.

AT&T Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 1st. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a dividend of $0.2775 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $1.11 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.17%. 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.