Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) Plans $0.68 Quarterly Dividend

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, December 5th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, January 10th will be paid a dividend of 0.6775 per share by the cell phone carrier on Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $2.71 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.37%.

Verizon Communications has increased its dividend by an average of 2.0% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 20 consecutive years. Verizon Communications has a dividend payout ratio of 57.2% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Verizon Communications to earn $4.74 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.71 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 57.2%.

Verizon Communications Stock Performance

NYSE:VZ traded up $0.03 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $42.55. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 15,903,971 shares, compared to its average volume of 18,438,740. Verizon Communications has a fifty-two week low of $36.46 and a fifty-two week high of $45.36. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $42.84 and its 200-day moving average is $41.76. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32, a current ratio of 0.66 and a quick ratio of 0.62. The firm has a market cap of $179.12 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.33, a P/E/G ratio of 3.18 and a beta of 0.44.

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The cell phone carrier reported $1.19 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.18 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $33.30 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $33.42 billion. Verizon Communications had a net margin of 7.30% and a return on equity of 20.05%. Verizon Communications’s quarterly revenue was up .9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $1.22 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Verizon Communications will post 4.61 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently commented on VZ. KeyCorp cut shares of Verizon Communications from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 24th. Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of Verizon Communications from $47.00 to $49.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 25th. StockNews.com cut shares of Verizon Communications from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, November 30th. Bank of America increased their target price on Verizon Communications from $41.00 to $45.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 26th. Finally, Tigress Financial increased their target price on Verizon Communications from $52.00 to $55.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 1st. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $46.37.

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).