Perennial Investment Advisors LLC Purchases 849 Shares of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)

Perennial Investment Advisors LLC grew its position in AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) by 2.5% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 34,152 shares of the technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 849 shares during the period. Perennial Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in AT&T were worth $778,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in AT&T by 1.0% during 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 grew its stake in shares of AT&T by 1.6% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 163,761,301 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $3,719,723,000 after purchasing an additional 2,640,644 shares during the period. GQG Partners LLC increased 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 purchasing an additional 26,280,866 shares during the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its stake in AT&T by 7.1% in the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 85,592,594 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,948,943,000 after buying an additional 5,649,277 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new position in AT&T during the fourth quarter worth about $1,858,418,000. Institutional investors own 57.10% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Scotiabank increased their price target on shares of AT&T from $26.00 to $28.50 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, March 3rd. Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of AT&T from $28.00 to $32.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 31st. Oppenheimer upped their price objective on shares of AT&T from $27.00 to $32.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 1st. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on AT&T from $27.00 to $28.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Finally, BNP Paribas upgraded AT&T from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $28.50 price target for the company in a report on Thursday, February 13th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating, seventeen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $27.21.

AT&T Trading Down 6.8 %

Shares of T stock opened at $26.65 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.00, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a current ratio of 0.66. AT&T Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $15.94 and a fifty-two week high of $29.03. 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. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $26.26 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $23.75.

AT&T (NYSE:T) last posted its earnings results on Monday, January 27th. The technology company reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.48 by $0.06. AT&T had a net margin of 8.95% and a return on equity of 13.97%. Equities analysts predict 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 Thursday, May 1st. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a $0.2775 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $1.11 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.17%. AT&T’s dividend payout ratio is presently 74.50%.

About AT&T

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.