Van ECK Associates Corp Has $5.33 Million Stock Holdings in AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)

Van ECK Associates Corp grew its position in shares of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) by 6.2% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 317,763 shares of the technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 18,684 shares during the period. Van ECK Associates Corp’s holdings in AT&T were worth $5,332,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Carmel Capital Partners LLC raised its position in shares of AT&T by 16,250.0% during the third quarter. Carmel Capital Partners LLC now owns 1,635 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $25,000 after acquiring an additional 1,625 shares during the last quarter. Lipe & Dalton bought a new position in shares of AT&T during the third quarter worth about $30,000. Ramirez Asset Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of AT&T during the third quarter worth about $30,000. Farmers & Merchants Trust Co of Chambersburg PA raised its position in shares of AT&T by 35.3% during the fourth quarter. Farmers & Merchants Trust Co of Chambersburg PA now owns 2,322 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $39,000 after acquiring an additional 606 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Financial Gravity Asset Management Inc. raised its position in shares of AT&T by 3,202.4% during the third quarter. Financial Gravity Asset Management Inc. now owns 2,708 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $41,000 after acquiring an additional 2,626 shares during the last quarter. 57.10% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on T. Royal Bank of Canada restated a “sector perform” rating and set a $17.00 price objective on shares of AT&T in a research report on Thursday, April 11th. Tigress Financial lifted their target price on AT&T from $28.00 to $29.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 31st. Barclays upgraded AT&T from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $20.00 target price for the company in a report on Monday, April 29th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lifted their target price on AT&T from $23.00 to $24.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 25th. Finally, Citigroup lifted their target price on AT&T from $19.00 to $20.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, February 1st. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $20.81.

AT&T Trading Up 0.2 %

NYSE T opened at $16.85 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $120.52 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.06, a P/E/G ratio of 3.32 and a beta of 0.57. AT&T Inc. has a 52 week low of $13.43 and a 52 week high of $18.16. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $16.97 and a 200-day moving average price of $16.64. The company has a quick ratio of 0.63, a current ratio of 0.68 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.06.

AT&T (NYSE:T) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 24th. The technology company reported $0.55 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.53 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $30.03 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $30.62 billion. AT&T had a return on equity of 14.63% and a net margin of 11.13%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down .4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.60 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that AT&T Inc. will post 2.24 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

AT&T Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, May 1st. Investors of record on Wednesday, April 10th were given a dividend of $0.2775 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, April 9th. This represents a $1.11 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.59%. AT&T’s payout ratio is 59.68%.

About AT&T

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.