Principal Financial Group Inc. Grows Holdings in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ)

Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ - Free Report) by 2.7% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 4,954,357 shares of the cell phone carrier's stock after acquiring an additional 129,171 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. owned about 0.12% of Verizon Communications worth $222,500,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of VZ. Birmingham Capital Management Co. Inc. AL lifted its holdings in Verizon Communications by 5.8% during the third quarter. Birmingham Capital Management Co. Inc. AL now owns 22,152 shares of the cell phone carrier's stock valued at $995,000 after purchasing an additional 1,212 shares in the last quarter. DGS Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of Verizon Communications by 26.7% during the 3rd quarter. DGS Capital Management LLC now owns 20,160 shares of the cell phone carrier's stock valued at $905,000 after purchasing an additional 4,243 shares during the period. Inspire Trust Co. N.A. lifted its stake in shares of Verizon Communications by 21.4% during the 3rd quarter. Inspire Trust Co. N.A. now owns 75,559 shares of the cell phone carrier's stock valued at $3,393,000 after buying an additional 13,319 shares in the last quarter. Asset Advisors Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in Verizon Communications by 76.7% in the 3rd quarter. Asset Advisors Investment Management LLC now owns 20,007 shares of the cell phone carrier's stock worth $899,000 after buying an additional 8,685 shares during the period. Finally, Synovus Financial Corp boosted its holdings in Verizon Communications by 9.1% in the 3rd quarter. Synovus Financial Corp now owns 364,181 shares of the cell phone carrier's stock worth $16,356,000 after buying an additional 30,316 shares during the period. 62.06% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have recently commented on VZ shares. Tigress Financial boosted their price objective on Verizon Communications from $52.00 to $55.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 1st. KeyCorp cut Verizon Communications from an "overweight" rating to a "sector weight" rating in a report on Thursday, October 24th. Bank of America upped their price target on Verizon Communications from $41.00 to $45.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. UBS Group lifted their price objective on shares of Verizon Communications from $44.00 to $45.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research report on Friday. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Verizon Communications from a "strong-buy" rating to a "buy" rating in a research report on Monday. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $46.51.

Verizon Communications Trading Down 0.1 %

VZ stock traded down $0.04 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $39.93. 46,433,895 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 18,490,430. The firm has a market capitalization of $168.09 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.21, a P/E/G ratio of 3.05 and a beta of 0.44. Verizon Communications Inc. has a 52-week low of $37.15 and a 52-week high of $45.36. The business has a 50 day moving average of $42.17 and a 200-day moving average of $41.87. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a current ratio of 0.66.

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The cell phone carrier reported $1.19 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.18 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $33.30 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $33.42 billion. Verizon Communications had a return on equity of 20.05% and a net margin of 7.30%. Verizon Communications's quarterly revenue was up .9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.22 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Verizon Communications Inc. will post 4.61 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Verizon Communications Cuts Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, February 3rd. Investors of record on Friday, January 10th will be paid a dividend of $0.6775 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 10th. This represents a $2.71 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 6.79%. Verizon Communications's dividend payout ratio is presently 116.81%.

Verizon Communications Company Profile

Verizon Communications Inc, through its subsidiaries, engages in the provision of communications, technology, information, and entertainment products and services to consumers, businesses, and governmental entities worldwide. It operates in two segments, Verizon Consumer Group (Consumer) and Verizon Business Group (Business).