Hans Vestberg, Chairman and CEO of Verizon Communications (VZ) recently added 19,000 shares. The buy increased his holdings by 14.5 percent, and cane to a total purchase price of just under $999,000.
This marks the first insider buy at the company since February 2020. Company executives have been regular and consistent sellers of shares over the past three years, although company directors have made no changes to their holdings.
Overall, company insiders own just 0.11 percent of the company.
Shares of the telecom giant are down slightly over the past year, far underperforming the overall stock market. That’s in spite of an industry-leading 16.5 percent profit margin, even amid flat earnings and revenue growth.
Action to take: Shares look attractive to investors here at less than 10 times forward earnings. Plus, the company pays a 4.8 percent dividend yield here, with some slight growth built in.
For traders, the stock looks attractive as it started an uptrend in December and only belatedly got caught up in the recent market selloff.
The April $55 calls, last going for about $0.90, are an inexpensive way to bet on a further move higher, and potentially even nab triple-digit returns on a big jump in shares. As it’s a telecom-based play, however, traders shouldn’t look to get too greedy with any quick gains in the next few weeks on a market rebound.
Disclosure: The author of this article has no position in the company mentioned here, but may trade after the next 72 hours. The author receives no compensation from any of the companies mentioned in this article.