Verizon stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
September 20th, 2019
5
Verizon Communications Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides communications, information, and entertainment products and services to consumers, businesses, and governmental agencies worldwide.
Should I buy Verizon stock?
You can't be a successful trader if you don't follow a methodolgy or system that assist you in choosing companies and the correct market timing. That's why is so important to choose your own trading plan that matches with your character as inversor. At Stocks2.com, we use very simple but trusted and powerful trend following trading strategies. Simple things usually work the best.None of our preferred buy setups matches with Verizon stock situation right now, hence this is not a suitable entry point.
| Buy setup | Elegible |
|---|---|
| New all-time high | No |
| New 52 week high | No |
| Price crossing up 200d MA | No |
| 100d MA crossing up 200d MA | No |
Is Verizon Communications stock a buy?
Banks and financial institutions publish stock ratings everyday.
At Stocks2.com, we collected 5 ratings published for VZ stock in the last month. The general sentiment of these ratings is bullish for VZ stock, with 3 positive ratings.| Date | Analyst / Broker | Previous rating | Current rating |
| 2019-8-27 | Oppenheimer | Market Perform | Outperform |
| 2019-7-8 | Citigroup | Buy | Neutral |
| 2019-5-30 | UBS Group | Buy | Neutral |
| 2019-4-23 | Goldman Sachs Group | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-4-23 | Bank of America | n/a | Buy |
Verizon stock analysis
Daily outlook
Verizon inched 0.50% today to $60.28 after topping to all time highs on Sep 12th.
After reaching all time highs on September/12, Verizon Communications inched 0.50% to $60.28. On August 26th VZ price bounced up over the SMA of 200 days demonstrating to be a significant support for this stock. Since SMA50d and SMA100d crossed up on Sep/10, VZ price climbed $1.62 per share (2.76%). On September 12th, VZ hit a new all time high, pushing higher than on Sep 11th tops. Check different trading setups that use ATHs as triggers.
Weekly outlook
Verizon shares gained 0.53% this week, ending at $60.28. With this, it's been 4 climbing weeks in a row, soaring a 7.70%.
Not so far away is the last price record Verizon marked last week. Late August VZ price bounced up over the SMA of 40 weeks that acted as support stopping new slides. Since early September when SMA10w and SMA20w crossed up, VZ price gained $2.12 per share (3.65%).
Verizon stock price history
Verizon stock went public on November 21st, 1983 with a price of $0.311. Since then, VZ stock grew a 19,345.20%, with a yearly average of 552.70%. If you had invested right after VZ's IPO a $1,000 in Verizon stock in 1983, it would worth $193,452.00 today.
1: Adjusted price after possible price splits or reverse-splits.
Verizon stock historical price chart
VZ stock reached all-time highs on September 12th with a price of $60.55.
Verizon stock price target is $62.20
How much a stock will be priced tomorrow or next week is quite unpredictable However, banks and other financial institutions analysts, with the help of lots of data and algorithms do their best to predict the stock prices movement. The accuracy of these stock price predictions is not very high, and you should not blindly believe and make decisions only based on what this ratings or price target predictions say. We detected 4 price targets for Verizon stock posted in the last 30 days:| Date | Analyst / Broker | Action | Previous target | Current target | Diff |
| 2019-7-8 | Citigroup | Downgrades | n/a | $62.00 | - |
| 2019-5-30 | UBS Group | Downgrades | n/a | $57.70 | - |
| 2019-4-23 | Goldman Sachs Group | Set Price Target | n/a | $65.00 | - |
| 2019-4-23 | Bank of America | Set Price Target | n/a | $64.00 | - |
| (in average) | $0.00 | $62.20 | 0.0% |
Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
Since April, when Verizon posted its last earnings report, it . As soon as we get its posted EPS from the earnings report, we will extend this review.| Quarter | Reporting date | Estimated EPS | Actual EPS | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | - | n/a | 1.59 | n/a |
| 2017-Q3 | 2017-10-19 | 0.98 | 0.98 | 0.0% |
| 2017-Q4 | 2018-01-23 | 0.88 | 0.86 | -2.3% |
| 2018-Q1 | 2018-04-24 | 1.11 | 1.17 | 5.4% |
| 2018-Q2 | 2018-07-24 | 1.14 | 1.2 | 5.3% |
| 2018-Q3 | 2018-10-23 | 1.19 | 1.22 | 2.5% |
| 2018-Q4 | 2019-01-29 | 1.09 | 1.12 | 2.8% |
| 2019-Q1 | 2019-04-23 | 1.16 | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q2 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q3 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Annual financial results
Compared to 2017, last anual revenues report draw a good growth of 3.83% to $130,863.00 million USD. When comparing 2018 vs 2017, instead, profit margin (that is, the net income divided by revenues) plummed a -12.02% to 11.87%. To have an up to date view of the financial situation of Verizon Communications, we have calculated the trailing twelve month (TTM) sales and income figures. TTM values are the sum of the last 4 quarters and aproximate to an annual fiscal report ending in 2019-Q1 that can be compared to 2018 fiscal year results. Annual Verizon Communications TTM sales up to March 2019 were $131,219.00 and earnings were $16,015.00 million dollars. When comparing this TTM figures with the last reported annuality, we can review Verizon business evolution since December 2018: Annual revenues up to March, compared to lastest yearly report, remained stable a neutral 0.27%. Regarding profit margin, Verizon Communications stayed constant 0.34% to 11.87%| Year | Sales | YoY | Income/(margin) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | $120,550 M | - | $11,500 M9.5% | - |
| 2014 | $127,079 M | 5.42% | $9,625 M7.6% | -16.30% |
| 2015 | $131,620 M | 3.57% | $17,879 M13.6% | 85.76% |
| 2016 | $125,980 M | -4.29% | $13,127 M10.4% | -26.58% |
| 2017 | $126,034 M | 0.04% | $30,101 M23.9% | 129.31% |
| 2018 | $130,863 M | 3.83% | $15,528 M11.9% | -48.41% |
| TTM | $131,219 M | 0.27% | $16,015 M12.2% | 3.14% |
Quarterly financial results
Verizon Communications posted $32,128.00 M in sales for 2019-Q1, a -6.28% less compared to previous quarter. Reported quarter earnings marked $5,032.00 M with a profit margin of 15.66%. Profit margin rocketed a 10.01% compared to previous quarter when profit margin was 5.66%. When comparing revenues to same quarter last year, Verizon sales marked a slightly good gain and stepped up a 1.12%.| Quarter | Sales1 | QoQ2 | Income1/(margin) | QoQ2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | $30,550 M | - | $4,360 M14.3% | - |
| 2017-Q3 | $31,720 M | 3.83% | $3,620 M11.4% | -16.97% |
| 2017-Q4 | $33,955 M | 7.05% | $18,669 M55.0% | 415.72% |
| 2018-Q1 | $31,772 M | -6.43% | $4,545 M14.3% | -75.65% |
| 2018-Q2 | $32,203 M | 1.36% | $4,120 M12.8% | -9.35% |
| 2018-Q3 | $32,607 M | 1.25% | $4,924 M15.1% | 19.51% |
| 2018-Q4 | $34,281 M | 5.13% | $1,939 M5.7% | -60.62% |
| 2019-Q1 | $32,128 M | -6.28% | $5,032 M15.7% | 159.52% |
Verizon ownership
When you are planning to invest in a company, it's always worth to review its ownership structure.Management staff in all public traded companies that hold equity is required to report every transaction to the SEC. For Verizon Communications, 0.03% of all outstanding shares are owned by its staff.
In case of Verizon stock, 68.11% of its shares are held by institutions (mutual funds, pension funds, big banks and other large financial institutions). Bearish positions for VZ stock account 0.00%, no big difference from last month.
For a better context understanding, the following table shows ownership data compared to other related stocks:
| VZ | AAPL | GOOGL | SHEN | SPOK | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $249.6 B | $998.7 B | $371.0 B | $1.6 B | $230.6 M |
| Total shares | 4,140.0 M | 4,520.0 M | 299.5 M | 49.9 M | 19.2 M |
| Float shares | 4,130.0 M | 4,260.0 M | 601.6 M | 47.0 M | 16.2 M |
| - Institutional holdings (%) | 68.1% | 61.0% | 81.0% | 50.5% | 87.0% |
| - Insider holdings (%) | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.2% | 5.4% | 2.2% |
| Shares in short selling | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Verizon summary
| Friday, September 20th, 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $60.27 |
| Close | $60.28 |
| Day range | $59.97 - $60.38 |
| Previous close | $59.98 |
| Session gain | 0.50% |
| Average true range | $0.66 |
| 50d mov avg | $57.28 |
| 100d mov avg | $57.05 |
| 200d mov avg | $56.37 |
| Daily pattern | |
| Weekly pattern | |
Verizon performance
To measure stock performance is always good to compare with competitors or related stocks. In the following table, we compare Verizon performance to Apple, Alphabet, Shenandoah Telecommunications, Spok, AT&T, Telephone and Data Systems, T-Mobile US, United States Cellular and Vodafone:| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| VZVerizon Communica... | 5.44% | 2.97% | 15.52% |
| AAPLApple | 11.58% | 16.54% | 3.09% |
| GOOGLAlphabet | 10.07% | 2.58% | 5.68% |
| SHENShenandoah Teleco... | -19.23% | -27.53% | -14.23% |
| SPOKSpok | -16.15% | -9.03% | -14.84% |
| TAT&T | 16.20% | 23.30% | 17.01% |
| TDSTelephone and Dat... | -19.61% | -16.48% | -13.09% |
| TMUST-Mobile US | 7.00% | 12.66% | 17.27% |
| USMUnited States Cel... | -23.11% | -20.45% | -16.31% |
| VODVodafone | 23.67% | 8.36% | -7.42% |
Verizon competitors
We selected a few stocks to conform a list of Verizon Communications competitors to review if you are interested in investing in VZ:- Apple (AAPL)
- Alphabet (GOOGL)
- Shenandoah Telecommunications (SHEN)
- Spok (SPOK)
- AT&T (T)
- Telephone and Data Systems (TDS)
- T-Mobile US (TMUS)
- United States Cellular (USM)
- Vodafone (VOD)
Latest Verizon stock news
- InvestorPlace3 Big Stock Charts for Friday: Verizon, PepsiCo and Occidental PetroleumAugust 2, 2019
- InvestorPlaceVerizon Stock Unlikely to Move Significantly on Earnings NumbersJuly 25, 2019
- InvestorPlace3 Big Stock Charts for Thursday: Eastman Chemical, Verizon and General MotorsJuly 18, 2019
- InvestorPlaceStock Showdown: AT&T Stock and Verizon Are Both Risky PlaysJuly 11, 2019
- InvestorPlaceNasdaq Today: Google-Dish vs. T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon?July 8, 2019