Verizon’s Reign as DJIA’s Worst Performing 2017 Stock Now at 6 Weeks

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) last week saw its share price drop nearly 1%, holding on to its position as the worst-performing stock among the 30 equities included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. For the year to date, Verizon’s shares are down 15.1%.

The stock price fell to a new 52-week low of $44.46 in the week ending May 19, and it came close to that last Wednesday, reaching a low of $44.85.

CEO Lowell McAdam said last week that the company does plan to launch an over-the-top (OTT) streaming service before the end of this year. He also said that the company would use its combined platform of AOL and Yahoo to test the OTT platform. Verizon expects its acquisition of Yahoo to close by mid-June.

The telecom giant is paying about $4.5 billion for Yahoo, $350 million below the original purchase price following the revelation that millions of Yahoo email accounts were compromised. Verizon’s plan to paste Yahoo and AOL together under a new brand called Oath has not generated a lot of enthusiasm among Verizon shareholders.

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What may have investors quaking in their boots is McAdam’s reiteration of Verizon’s openness to more mergers and acquisitions. According to Variety, he said that Verizon would consider a merger with Disney, Comcast or CBS if such an opportunity should present itself:

I’ll say this about M&A: There’s a lot more energy on Wall Street and in the media than there is in most businesses at this point. If there were an opportunity to accelerate the strategy, you should look at that.

Verizon stock closed at $45.32 per share on Friday, up less than 0.1% for the day. The stock’s 52-week range is $44.46 to $56.95, and the 12-month consensus price target is $49.72, according to MarketWatch. The company’s dividend yield ended the week down slightly at 5.10%.

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