One of the standouts of today's afternoon trading session was Verizon Communications, which logged a 1.4% performance and outperformed the S&P 500 by 1.0%. The Communication Equipment stock is now trading at $36.0 per share and may still have upside potential because it is still -17.2% under its average target price of $43.48. Analysts have set target prices ranging from $32.0 to $64.0 dollars per share, and have given the stock an average rating of hold.
The market sentiment on the stock is decidedly optimistic, since Verizon Communications has a short interest of only 1.2%. 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.
When a stock is sold short, it means an investor has borrowed shares of the stock from their broker, and then sold them at the going market price. The investor hopes for the price to decline, so that they might buy those shares back at a lower price in the future. Once they do, they can return the borrowed shares to their broker, and keep the profit they made on the 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 64.2% 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.
In conclusion, we see mixed market sentiment regarding Verizon Communications because of an analyst consensus of some upside potential, a hold rating, a very low short interest, and an average number of institutional investors. At Market Inference, we believe that any investment decision should be preceded by an in-depth analysis of the company's fundamental values and a comparison with similar stocks.
Here's a snapshot of some important facts to keep in mind about VZ:
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The stock has trailing 12 month earnings per share (EPS) of $5.14
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Verizon Communications has a trailing 12 month Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio of 7.0 compared to the S&P 500 average of 15.97
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The company has a Price to Book (P/B) ratio of 1.63 in contrast to the S&P 500's average ratio of 2.95
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Verizon Communications is a Telecommunications company, and the sector average P/E and P/B ratios are 18.85 and 3.12 respectively
