Woodline Partners LP Purchases 189,759 Shares of Comcast Co. (NASDAQ:CMCSA)

Woodline Partners LP boosted its holdings in Comcast Co. (NASDAQ:CMCSA - Free Report) by 26.5% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 905,314 shares of the cable giant's stock after buying an additional 189,759 shares during the quarter. Woodline Partners LP's holdings in Comcast were worth $33,976,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in CMCSA. Vident Advisory LLC boosted its position in Comcast by 3.9% during the fourth quarter. Vident Advisory LLC now owns 97,688 shares of the cable giant's stock valued at $3,666,000 after acquiring an additional 3,710 shares during the last quarter. Westwood Holdings Group Inc. boosted its position in Comcast by 20.2% during the fourth quarter. Westwood Holdings Group Inc. now owns 7,701 shares of the cable giant's stock valued at $289,000 after acquiring an additional 1,292 shares during the last quarter. TPG GP A LLC boosted its position in Comcast by 26.2% during the fourth quarter. TPG GP A LLC now owns 1,438,194 shares of the cable giant's stock valued at $53,975,000 after acquiring an additional 298,472 shares during the last quarter. Twinbeech Capital LP boosted its position in Comcast by 4,045.7% during the fourth quarter. Twinbeech Capital LP now owns 579,491 shares of the cable giant's stock valued at $21,748,000 after acquiring an additional 565,513 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Two Sigma Advisers LP boosted its position in Comcast by 733.9% during the fourth quarter. Two Sigma Advisers LP now owns 423,600 shares of the cable giant's stock valued at $15,898,000 after acquiring an additional 372,800 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 84.32% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts have recently commented on the stock. Morgan Stanley set a $37.00 price objective on shares of Comcast in a research report on Friday, April 25th. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Comcast from a "buy" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Thursday, February 27th. Argus downgraded shares of Comcast from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 6th. Wells Fargo & Company downgraded shares of Comcast from an "equal weight" rating to an "underweight" rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $37.00 to $31.00 in a research report on Monday, April 14th. Finally, Oppenheimer reduced their price objective on shares of Comcast from $55.00 to $38.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Friday, April 25th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating, nine have issued a buy rating and three have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $42.10.

Comcast Stock Down 0.2%

CMCSA traded down $0.07 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $34.52. 13,930,047 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 21,933,178. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.09, a quick ratio of 0.68 and a current ratio of 0.68. The stock has a market capitalization of $128.89 billion, a PE ratio of 8.32, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.78 and a beta of 0.97. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $34.84 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $37.06. Comcast Co. has a 1 year low of $31.44 and a 1 year high of $45.31.

Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 24th. The cable giant reported $1.09 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $1.01 by $0.08. The firm had revenue of $29.89 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $29.82 billion. Comcast had a net margin of 13.09% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The business's revenue for the quarter was down .6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.04 EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Comcast Co. will post 4.33 EPS for the current year.

Comcast Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 23rd. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, July 2nd will be paid a dividend of $0.33 per share. This represents a $1.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.82%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, July 2nd. Comcast's payout ratio is 32.43%.

Comcast Company Profile

Comcast Corporation operates as a media and technology company worldwide. It operates through Residential Connectivity & Platforms, Business Services Connectivity, Media, Studios, and Theme Parks segments. The Residential Connectivity & Platforms segment provides residential broadband and wireless connectivity services, residential and business video services, sky-branded entertainment television networks, and advertising.