ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc. Cuts Stock Holdings in AT&T Inc. $T

ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc. decreased its holdings in shares of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) by 8.9% in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 1,152,066 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 112,743 shares during the period. ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc.’s holdings in AT&T were worth $33,341,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the business. Brighton Jones LLC boosted its stake in AT&T by 26.5% in the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 48,579 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,106,000 after buying an additional 10,188 shares in the last quarter. Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. boosted its stake in AT&T by 24.1% in the first quarter. Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. now owns 14,035 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $397,000 after buying an additional 2,725 shares in the last quarter. Beacon Financial Group boosted its stake in AT&T by 2.9% in the first quarter. Beacon Financial Group now owns 14,976 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $424,000 after buying an additional 417 shares in the last quarter. Fermata Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in AT&T in the first quarter worth approximately $227,000. Finally, Chesley Taft & Associates LLC boosted its stake in AT&T by 5.0% in the first quarter. Chesley Taft & Associates LLC now owns 38,503 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,089,000 after buying an additional 1,832 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 57.10% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

T has been the subject of several research reports. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on AT&T from $30.00 to $31.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 10th. Scotiabank upped their target price on AT&T from $29.50 to $30.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, July 11th. HSBC lowered AT&T from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $30.00 target price for the company. in a research note on Thursday, July 24th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on AT&T from $31.00 to $33.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 24th. Finally, Citigroup reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of AT&T in a research report on Tuesday, August 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seventeen have assigned a Buy rating and six have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $30.74.

AT&T Trading Up 0.2%

NYSE T opened at $27.06 on Friday. AT&T Inc. has a 12 month low of $21.05 and a 12 month high of $29.79. The stock has a market cap of $193.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.38, a P/E/G ratio of 3.46 and a beta of 0.42. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $28.60 and its 200-day moving average price is $27.91. The company has a current ratio of 0.81, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.01.

AT&T (NYSE:T) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 23rd. The technology company reported $0.54 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.53 by $0.01. AT&T had a return on equity of 13.36% and a net margin of 10.29%.The company had revenue of $30.85 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $30.44 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.51 earnings per share. AT&T’s revenue was up 3.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that AT&T Inc. will post 2.14 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AT&T Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, November 3rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 10th will be given a $0.2775 dividend. This represents a $1.11 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 10th. AT&T’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 63.07%.

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.