Company Update (NYSE:VZ): Verizon broadband switch to Frontier hiccup bypassed San Antonio

[at American City Business Journals] – San Antonio businesses missed a tidal wave of broadband glitches that hit other Texas cities after a multibillion-dollar telecommunications deal closed this spring between a largely rural provider, Frontier Communications Corp., and telecom giant Verizon Communications Inc. in late March. Just one day after the $10.5 billion sale closed on March 31, Frontier’s new networks experienced outages across Texas, California and Florida — complaints came rolling in. The city of Plano, Texas had its website go down and dozens of customers in the Dallas area had connectivity issues with broadband service. Read more on this. Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) , valued at $207.48B, opened this morning at $51.20. Looking at today’s trading action, the company’s one day range from $50.67 to $51.35 with a trailing 52-week range being $38.06 to $54.49. VZ shares are currently priced at 12.94x this year’s forecasted earnings, which makes them relatively inexpensive compared to the industry’s 16.19x earnings multiple. And for income investors, the company pays shareholders $2.26 per share annually in dividends, yielding 4.44%. According to a consensus of 23 analysts, the earnings estimate of $0.99 per share would be $0.05 worse than the year-ago quarter and a $0.04 sequential decrease. Investors should also note that the full-year EPS estimate of $3.96 is a $0.03 worse when compared to the previous year’s annual results. The quarterly earnings estimate is based on a consensus revenue forecast of the current quarter of $31.26 Billion. If realized, that would be a 2.98% decrease over the year-ago quarter. In terms of ratings, Bernstein downgraded VZ from Outperform to Mkt Perform (Apr 7, 2016). Previously, Jefferies downgraded VZ from Buy to Hold. Given all the information above, we should disclose to readers that the average price target is $52.30, which is 2.15% above than it opened this morning. See more in (NYSE:VZ) Similar Articles: Market Update (NYSE:VZ): This rural telecom giant is taking the reigns for Verizon’s FIOS network in San Antonio Market Update (NYSE:VZ): Frontier Downgraded By Citi On Post-Verizon-Deal Synergies Stock Update: Verizon Communications Inc (NYSE:VZ) – What Will Frontier Do with Verizon’s Penetrated Assets?