Rocketing to a price of $36.02 during today's morning trading session, shares of Verizon Communications are still -32.75% below their average target price of $53.57. Could there be more upside potential for the stock? Analysts are giving VZ an average rating of hold and target prices ranging from $40 to $69 dollars per share.
The market sentiment on the stock is decidedly optimistic, since Verizon Communications has a short interest of only 1.0%. This is the percentage of the share float that is being shorted. Each short position represents an investor's expectation that the price of the stock will decrease in the future.
Short selling involves borrowing shares and then selling them at current market prices. In the successful version of the strategy, the shares are purchased at a lower price at some time in the future. The investor then returns the shares to the lender, and keeps the profit made on the sell/buy transaction.
One way to get an idea of the market sentiment on a stock is to check its rate of institutional ownership. In the case of Verizon Communications, institutional investors own 64.4% of the shares. This would indicate a positive sentiment towards the stock among institutions. What does this really tell us?
Institutional investors such as hedge funds, investment firms, and wealth managers devote significant resources to identifying good investments. If they have decided to invest in VZ, it probably means they believe it is a solid investment choice. But it could also mean they are buying up shares in an effort to acquire the company or get seats on the board of directors. Also bear in mind that institutions are fallible (just maybe not quite as fallible as the average retail investor), so they may simply be wrong when they think they've found a good stock.
Overall, there is mostly positive market sentiment on Verizon Communications because of its an analyst consensus of strong upside potential, a hold rating,, a very low short interest, and an average number of institutional investors. Warren Buffett famously said that in the short term, markets are voting mechanisms, but in the long term, they are weighing mechanisms. This means that long term investors should be aware of a stock's fundamentals before committing.
At a glance, here are some essential statistics you may want to know about VZ:
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It has a trailing 12 month price to earnings (Eps) of $4.56 per share
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Verizon Communications has a trailing 12 month Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio of 7.9 while the S&P 500 average is 15.97
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The company has a Price to Book (P/B) ratio of 2.1 in contrast to the S&P 500's average ratio of 2.95
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Verizon Communications is a Communication Services company, and the sector average P/E and P/B ratios are 18.65 and 2.62 respectively
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