Traders Purchase Large Volume of AT&T Call Options (NYSE:T)

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) was the target of unusually large options trading activity on Wednesday. Traders bought 679,118 call options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 1,005% compared to the typical daily volume of 61,437 call options.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Tigress Financial upped their target price on shares of AT&T from $29.00 to $30.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Hsbc Global Res upgraded shares of AT&T to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 1st. Sanford C. Bernstein assumed coverage on shares of AT&T in a research note on Tuesday, December 10th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $28.00 target price on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on shares of AT&T from $25.00 to $28.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 5th. Finally, Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of AT&T from $26.00 to $28.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 4th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating, thirteen have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, AT&T has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $25.76.

Institutional Trading of AT&T

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Davidson Kempner Capital Management LP purchased a new position in shares of AT&T during the second quarter valued at $23,888,000. Swiss National Bank increased its stake in shares of AT&T by 0.5% during the third quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 21,282,584 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $468,217,000 after buying an additional 104,700 shares during the period. Franklin Resources Inc. increased its stake in shares of AT&T by 41.4% during the third quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 7,947,913 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $168,969,000 after buying an additional 2,326,904 shares during the period. International Assets Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in AT&T during the fourth quarter valued at about $14,700,000. Finally, Caprock Group LLC boosted its position in AT&T by 18.3% during the third quarter. Caprock Group LLC now owns 195,991 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $4,312,000 after purchasing an additional 30,281 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 57.10% of the company’s stock.

AT&T Price Performance

NYSE:T opened at $22.20 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $159.29 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.05, a PEG ratio of 3.60 and a beta of 0.59. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.09, a current ratio of 0.73 and a quick ratio of 0.67. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $22.82 and a 200-day simple moving average of $21.18. AT&T has a 1 year low of $15.94 and a 1 year high of $24.03.

AT&T (NYSE:T) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 23rd. The technology company reported $0.60 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.57 by $0.03. AT&T had a return on equity of 13.97% and a net margin of 7.42%. The company had revenue of $30.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $30.50 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.64 EPS. AT&T’s quarterly revenue was down .5% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts forecast that AT&T will post 2.19 EPS for the current year.

AT&T Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, February 3rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 10th will be paid a $0.2775 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 10th. This represents a $1.11 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.00%. AT&T’s payout ratio is 90.24%.

AT&T Company Profile

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.