Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund Buys 30,476 Shares of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)

Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund lifted its stake in AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) by 2.5% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 1,245,347 shares of the technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 30,476 shares during the quarter. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund’s holdings in AT&T were worth $23,799,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in T. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in AT&T by 0.4% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 624,994,998 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $10,999,912,000 after purchasing an additional 2,588,539 shares during the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its position in AT&T by 7.4% during the 2nd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 81,076,641 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,549,375,000 after buying an additional 5,592,123 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in AT&T in the fourth quarter valued at about $1,118,288,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its holdings in AT&T by 2.5% in the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 47,377,267 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $794,978,000 after acquiring an additional 1,137,792 shares in the last quarter. Finally, LSV Asset Management grew its stake in shares of AT&T by 1.1% during the first quarter. LSV Asset Management now owns 29,777,030 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $524,076,000 after acquiring an additional 333,787 shares during the last quarter. 57.10% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts recently commented on the stock. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their price objective on shares of AT&T from $24.00 to $26.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, June 28th. TD Cowen raised their price target on shares of AT&T from $21.00 to $23.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, July 25th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on shares of AT&T from $18.00 to $19.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Thursday, July 25th. Scotiabank lowered AT&T from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 6th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on AT&T from $21.00 to $24.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 25th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, AT&T currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $22.06.

AT&T Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE T traded up $0.32 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $20.97. 53,079,539 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 35,856,078. The company has a quick ratio of 0.66, a current ratio of 0.70 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.05. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $19.31 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $18.00. AT&T Inc. has a twelve month low of $14.12 and a twelve month high of $21.00. The firm has a market cap of $150.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.28, a PEG ratio of 3.36 and a beta of 0.59.

AT&T (NYSE:T) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 24th. The technology company reported $0.57 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.57. AT&T had a net margin of 10.41% and a return on equity of 14.16%. The company had revenue of $29.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $30.05 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.63 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down .3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts anticipate that AT&T Inc. will post 2.22 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AT&T Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 1st. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, July 10th were given a dividend of $0.2775 per share. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, July 10th. This represents a $1.11 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.29%. AT&T’s dividend payout ratio is currently 59.68%.

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.