BlackRock Fund Advisors recently announced the acquisition of new stake in AT&T, Inc. (NYSE:T). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Communication Services company by 0.04% to 354.95 million shares with purchase of 0.14 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 4.96% valued currently at $5.88 billion. In addition, Newport Trust Co. raised its holdings by 0.67 million to 200.0 million shares. And Geode Capital Management LLC has lifted its position by 2.87% or 3.96 million shares – to 142.13 million shares.
With over 26.64 million AT&T, Inc. (T) shares trading Friday and a closing price of $16.55 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $440.97 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 5.89% and its price on 12/22/23 gained nearly 0.36%. Currently, there are 7.15B common shares owned by the public and among those 7.14B shares have been available to trade.
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An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 27 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for T have a consensus price objective of $17.84. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $25.00 and a low of $9.00. The average price target is 7.23% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -83.89% over that period. But an upside of 33.8% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $18.10.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 250 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 148 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 3,015,976 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 102 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 2,712,699 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in AT&T, Inc. are Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Vanguard 500 Index Fund, and Fidelity 500 Index Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF owns 224.19 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $3.71 billion. The company bought an additional 0.39 million shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.14% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 0.85 million shares to see its total holdings expand to 172.66 million shares valued at over $2.86 billion and representing 2.42% of the shares outstanding. Fidelity 500 Index Fund bought 0.66 million shares to bring its total holdings to over 82.78 million shares at a value of $1.37 billion. Fidelity 500 Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 1.16% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T) opened at $16.50, up $0.01 from a prior closing price of $16.49. However, the script later moved the day high at 16.73, up 0.36%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 0.18% and 9.89% over the past three months. T shares are trading -10.10% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -8.82% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $13.43 and touched a high of $20.50 over the same period. T has an average intraday trading volume of 37.63 million shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by -0.20%, 4.27%, and 3.22% respectively.
Institutional ownership of AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T) shares accounts for 56.34% of the company’s 7.15B shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 28.04%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 28.56% and 0.34% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $118.33B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 0.56. The earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at -$1.63. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.40% over the week and 1.58% over the month.
Analysts forecast that AT&T, Inc. (T) will achieve an EPS of $0.56 for the current quarter, $0.6 for the next quarter and $2.47 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.51 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.61. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.61 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -5.27%, and 1.37% over the next financial year.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 27 brokerage firm advisors rate AT&T, Inc. (T) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.52. Specifically, 9 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 14 of the 27 advise that investors “hold,” and 3 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the T, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Scotiabank stated their Sector Outperform rating for the stock in a research note on October 20, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $18.50.
