Verizon (VZ)
Forward P/E is 8.43x against a peer median of 8.25x, a ratio of 1.02x — inside the 0.90–1.15 fair range on price alone — with trailing P/E 11.16x and PEG 1.11. Latest-quarter revenue fell -0.7% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR), so even a median multiple is not supported by delivered growth, which moves the label to overvalued. Delivered demand check: the Telecom & cable group's median growth was -1.2% year over year — demand falling, and this company also shrank.
What would change this label: Move to FAIRLY PRICED if revenue growth rises above 2% year over year for two quarters at a forward P/E near the current 8.43x, or if the forward P/E compresses to about 7.4x or below (0.90x the peer median) at unchanged estimates. Move further from fair value if revenue falls by more than 2% year over year while the forward multiple stays above 8.3x.
Verizon sells phone and internet services to households and businesses. Its shares trade at about 8 times expected earnings, about the same as similar telecom companies, even though its sales shrank slightly in the latest quarter. Paying a full peer price for a shrinking business makes the shares look overvalued, if only modestly.
Both lines start at 100 on 2020-09-01. Over the full window Verizon returned -25.74% and the S&P 500 +118.28% (price returns; dividends not reinvested). Worst peak-to-trough fall for Verizon: -50.3% (2020-12-03 to 2023-10-13). Source: Nasdaq official daily history.
What the label rests on
Forward P/E is 8.43x against a peer median of 8.25x, a ratio of 1.02x — inside the 0.90–1.15 fair range on price alone — with trailing P/E 11.16x and PEG 1.11. Latest-quarter revenue fell -0.7% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR), so even a median multiple is not supported by delivered growth, which moves the label to overvalued. Delivered demand check: the Telecom & cable group's median growth was -1.2% year over year — demand falling, and this company also shrank. The company’s forward P/E is 8.4× against a peer median of 8.2×. Its own history: UNVERIFIED — no sourced range available. Sector demand read: Delivered demand check: the Telecom & cable group's median latest-quarter revenue growth was -1.2% year over year (SEC filings) — demand falling. This company fell -0.7% year over year, slightly less than the group median but still shrinking. Latest-quarter sales growth was -0.7% versus a year earlier (SEC filings).
| Company | Price (Oct 28, 2026) | Forward P/E | Trailing P/E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Verizon (VZ) | $43.70 | 8.4× | 11.2× |
| TMUS | $145.68 | 11.6× | 15.3× |
| T | $20.93 | 8.2× | 11.2× |
| CMCSA | $21.52 | 6.3× | 6.9× |
| ECHO | $88.29 | 36.6× | — |
| CHTR | $105.05 | 2.4× | 2.7× |
| Peer median | 8.2× |
Multiples: stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026. Peer set chosen by sector; the median is the middle value of the set. The label and its numbers were recorded in the programme’s label registry on Oct 28, 2026 and will be scored at 6 and 12 months.
Sales, profit and cash
This company does not report a gross-profit line in its SEC facts (normal for banks, payment networks and some health insurers), so profit is shown as net income instead — gross margin is marked UNVERIFIED-absent rather than estimated.
Free cash flow by quarter is not shown for Verizon. Its SEC cash-flow facts do not separately tag spending on plant and equipment (normal for a bank), so a quarterly free-cash-flow figure cannot be built without estimating — and this programme does not estimate.
| Quarter | Sales | Gross margin | Net income | EPS (GAAP, diluted) | Free cash flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q/E Jun 2026 2026-06-30 | $34.3B | — | $3.8B | 0.92 | — |
| Q/E Mar 2026 2026-03-31 | $34.4B | — | $5.0B | 1.20 | — |
| Q/E Dec 2025 2025-12-31 | $36.4B | — | $2.3B | — | — |
| Q/E Sep 2025 2025-09-30 | $33.8B | — | $5.0B | 1.17 | — |
| Q/E Jun 2025 2025-06-30 | $34.5B | — | $5.0B | 1.18 | — |
| Q/E Mar 2025 2025-03-31 | $33.5B | — | $4.9B | 1.15 | — |
| Q/E Dec 2024 2024-12-31 | $35.7B | — | $5.0B | — | — |
| Q/E Sep 2024 2024-09-30 | $33.3B | — | $3.3B | 0.78 | — |
| Q/E Jun 2024 2024-06-30 | $32.8B | — | $4.6B | 1.09 | — |
| Q/E Mar 2024 2024-03-31 | $33.0B | — | $4.6B | 1.09 | — |
| Q/E Dec 2023 2023-12-31 | $35.1B | — | $-2.7B | — | — |
| Q/E Sep 2023 2023-09-30 | $33.3B | — | $4.8B | 1.13 | — |
The last twelve reported quarters. Full 24-quarter history sits in the data pack behind this page. A dash means the figure is not tagged as a standalone quarter in the company’s SEC facts (the usual case is the fourth quarter, which many companies only report inside the full-year filing) — it is missing, not zero.
Earnings: getting better or worse?
Each box is one quarter’s earnings per share (EPS). Green means EPS was higher than the same quarter a year earlier; red means lower; a dash means the figure is not tagged in the filings.
Basis: GAAP diluted EPS from SEC company facts, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
Key facts
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Company (legal name in filings) | VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS INC |
| Chief executive | Dan Schulman (source: https://www.verizon.com/about/investors/dan-schulman?utm_source=chatgpt.com) |
| Sector | Communication Services — Integrated Telecommunication Services — sells mobile phone, broadband and business network services |
| Share price (Oct 28, 2026) | $43.70 |
| Market value (market cap) | $182.5B — share price times shares outstanding of 4,154,775,202 (SEC filings; SEC EDGAR dei EntityCommonStockSharesOutstanding (latest)) |
| Sales, last twelve months | $138.9B |
| Net income, last twelve months | $16.2B |
| Free cash flow, last twelve months | — |
| Latest reported quarter | Q/E Jun 2026 (of 24 quarters in the data pack) |
| Six-year price return vs S&P 500 | -25.74% vs +118.28% |
| Worst peak-to-trough fall | -50.3% (2020-12-03 to 2023-10-13) |
What we could not verify
- Gross profit / gross margin: not tagged as a standalone line in this company's EDGAR company facts (common for banks, payment networks and some healthcare payers) — shown as UNVERIFIED-absent; the page charts revenue and net income instead.
- TTM GAAP diluted EPS could not be summed from company facts because at least one of the last four quarters (typically Q4) has no standalone tagged EPS; trailing P/E is therefore taken from the labelled secondary source in valuation_label.md.
- Free cash flow is absent for one or more quarters: either the filer does not separately tag PP&E purchases in its EDGAR cash-flow facts (common for banks), or — for a successor registrant's newest quarter — the cash-flow lines are year-to-date without the prior-quarter rung needed to difference them. Affected quarters are null in the data, never estimated.
- Own-history P/E range not yet compiled for this company in the Phase 1 batch run; the label rests on peer-median, growth and PEG evidence.
- Guidance record (each quarter scored against the guidance the company gave the quarter before) is not yet compiled for this company — it is a Phase 2 layer. The earnings strip below therefore uses reported EPS versus a year earlier, which is fully sourced from filings.
The IT factor — the most exciting thing the market is overlooking — is not assessed on an X-Ray page. It belongs to the Deep Dive (Phase 2), where it gets the evidence standard it needs. Leadership-era scoring (the six years split by chief executive) is likewise a Phase 2 layer; this page names the current chief executive only, from a sourced profile.
Sources
- SEC EDGAR submissions — Filing index; company legal name.
https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0000732712.json - SEC EDGAR company facts — Quarterly financial spine: revenue, gross profit, net income, GAAP diluted EPS, operating cash flow, PP&E capex, buybacks, dividends, diluted shares.
https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK0000732712.json - Nasdaq official daily history — Daily closes for the company; SPY (assetclass=etf) saved as raw/nasdaq_spy_raw.json over identical dates.
https://api.nasdaq.com/api/quote/VZ/historical?assetclass=stocks - Valuation multiples and peer figures — stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026; see valuation_label.md in the data pack.
Conventions: earliest-filed value per period, as first reported; cash-flow years-to-date differenced quarter by quarter; EPS never differenced; free cash flow = operating cash flow minus plant-and-equipment spending. This page is a dated snapshot — updates are new versions, never silent edits.