Alaska Permanent Fund Corp Buys 14,301 Shares of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)

Alaska Permanent Fund Corp increased its position in AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) by 1.4% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 1,014,350 shares of the technology company’s stock after acquiring an additional 14,301 shares during the quarter. Alaska Permanent Fund Corp’s holdings in AT&T were worth $17,021,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its holdings in shares of AT&T by 185.6% during the third quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 52,613,513 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $790,301,000 after purchasing an additional 34,189,954 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its position in shares of AT&T by 130.5% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,515,546 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $863,884,000 after buying an additional 32,558,342 shares in the last quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System lifted its holdings in shares of AT&T by 38.0% during the 3rd quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System now owns 34,558,594 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $519,070,000 after acquiring an additional 9,518,478 shares during the last quarter. Barclays PLC grew its position in AT&T by 30.6% in the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 26,227,124 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $393,931,000 after acquiring an additional 6,137,909 shares in the last quarter. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC increased its stake in AT&T by 43.0% in the third quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 14,739,648 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $221,242,000 after acquiring an additional 4,432,136 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 57.10% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on the company. Wolfe Research raised AT&T from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $21.00 price target for the company in a research note on Tuesday, March 5th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded AT&T from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $18.00 to $21.00 in a research report on Thursday, February 1st. StockNews.com cut shares of AT&T from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 4th. Tigress Financial lifted their price target on shares of AT&T from $28.00 to $29.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 31st. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price objective on shares of AT&T from $23.00 to $24.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 25th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, AT&T currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $20.50.

AT&T Stock Performance

Shares of AT&T stock traded up $0.20 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $16.51. 47,772,969 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 38,895,176. AT&T Inc. has a 1 year low of $13.43 and a 1 year high of $18.16. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $16.98 and a 200-day simple moving average of $16.54. The stock has a market capitalization of $118.09 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.42, a PEG ratio of 2.49 and a beta of 0.57. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.09, a current ratio of 0.71 and a quick ratio of 0.67.

AT&T (NYSE:T) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 24th. The technology company reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.55 by ($0.01). AT&T had a net margin of 11.76% and a return on equity of 15.39%. The company had revenue of $32 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $31.44 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.61 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts forecast that AT&T Inc. will post 2.21 EPS for the current year.

AT&T Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 1st. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, April 10th will be paid a $0.2775 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, April 9th. This represents a $1.11 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 6.72%. AT&T’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 56.63%.

AT&T Profile

AT&T Inc provides telecommunications and technology services worldwide. The company operates through two segments, Communications and Latin America. The Communications segment offers wireless voice and data communications services; and sells handsets, wireless data cards, wireless computing devices, carrying cases/protective covers, and wireless chargers through its own company-owned stores, agents, and third-party retail stores.