The Week Ahead: Are Investors Really Too Optimistic About Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ)

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) currently has a daily average trading volume of 22.04M but it saw 29131570 shares traded on Thursday. With a market cap of 153.09B USD, stock’s current market price of $36.58 came falling about -1.30 while comparing to the previous closing price of $37.06. In past 52 weeks, the stock remained buoying in the range of price level as high as $55.51 and as low as $32.79. In the recent trading on the day, stock has struck highest price mark of $36.88 while lowest mark touched by it was $36.44.

Taking a look at 20-day trading activity of Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) gives us an average price of $38.12, while its current price level is -34.10% below from 52-week high level whereas it is 11.56% above from lowest level seen by the stock during that period. Simple moving average of 50 days or SMA-50 of the stock’s closing price is $39.77 while that of 200 days or SMA-200 reads an average of $41.84. A closer look into the stock’s movement over the week reveals that its volatility is standing at 1.68% during that period while stretching the period over a month that decreases to 1.61%. It is also necessary to take a look into other indicators of a stock too, to get a better idea about its price movement. And in doing so, we find stock’s 14-day relative strength index (RSI) standing at 29.88 which implies that the stock is in oversold territory.

Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ)’s stock is currently under the radar of 27 analysts who are in consensus at a 12-month price target range of between $37.00 and $51.00 for company’s shares. The average price target assigned by the average number of analysts to a stock is a way to gauge worth of any stock in next 52 weeks. And in assigning price target to a stock, some analysts adopt a bearish approach by advocating lower-than-average price target which in this case is $37.00 while some adopt bullish approach by assigning higher-than-average price target which reads the price to top $51.00. Average price target assigned by them is $43.39 which highlights an upside potential of 15.69% for the stock over that period. And to attain the median price target of $43.00 assigned by those analysts, stock has to add about 14.93% of value to its current levels.

Data by FactSet Research shows that 27 analysts have issued their ratings for the stock. 1 of them are in opinions that stock is a Sell, while 1 are advising it as an Overweight. 5 analysts suggested the investors to Buy the stock while 19 advised them to Hold. Recommendations by all of those brokerages imply a consensus rating of Hold for the stock and that issued by Wall Street to investors is Moderate Buy.

The company’s shares got several price updates from the analyst firms in past one month and most recent of them is from the MoffettNathanson which upgraded the stock as “Market Perform” in its note to investors issued on December 19, 2022, recommending a price target of $41 for it. Morgan Stanley upgraded its recommendation for the stock as a “Overweight” from “Equal-Weight” on December 15, 2022 while assigning a price target range of $41-$44. Oppenheimer also issued its recommendations for the stock as it upgraded the price target for the stock is $50.

Over the week, VZ’s stock price is moving 0.08% up while it is -9.30% when we observe its performance for the past one month. Year-to-date it is -7.16% down and over the past year, the stock is showing a downside performance of -30.67%.

The latest quarterly earnings report issued by the company was for quarter ended 12/30/2022, when its quarterly earnings per share (EPS) of $1.19 beat the consensus estimate of $1.19 for the same. The company is expected to be releasing its next quarterly report in 04/25/2023, for which analysts forecasted an EPS of $1.19 while estimate for next year EPS is $4.7. For VZ, analysts are forecasting an EPS-growth rate of -9.30% for current year and estimate for EPS growth in next year is 0.90%. In next quarter, company is expected to be making quarterly sales of $34.15 billion as analysts are expecting the sales for current fiscal year at $137.67 billion and seeing the company making $139.12 billion in sales next year. Moreover, analysts are in estimates of $33.91 billion for current-quarter revenue.

Currently, Verizon Communications Inc.’s total number of outstanding shares is 4.21B with 0.03% of that held by the insiders while 64.15% of its common stock has been owned by the institutions. Company’s return on investment (ROI) stands at 10.10% and return on equity (ROE) at 24.40%. It has a price to earnings ratio (P/E ratio) of 7.23 while having a 7.72 of forward P/E ratio. Stock’s beta reads 0.34. Stock has a price to book (P/B) ratio of 1.69 while price to sale or P/S ratio amounts to 1.12. Its return on asset (ROA) is 5.70% on average.

A filing at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that Vanguard Total Stock Market Index came shrinking its share ownership by 0.76% in the Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) increasing its stake to 2.91% with control over 0.92 million shares in the company. As per SEC documents, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index sought 122,277,209 of company’s common stock of worth $4.75 billion as per recent closing price of the stock. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index is not the only institutional holder which restructured its stake in Verizon Communications Inc., as Vanguard 500 Index Fund picked 97,310,618 shares of worth $3.78 billion to bring its holdings to a total of 0.23 million shares. In the most recent quarter, Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF came rising its stake by 0.16% in the company and now holds 51.61 million or 1.23% of the company’s stake having worth of about 2.0 billion.