Zacks Investment Research Upgrades Frontier Communications Corporation (NASDAQ:FTR) to “Buy”

Zacks Investment Research upgraded shares of Frontier Communications Corporation (NASDAQ:FTR) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note released on Friday, July 14th.

According to Zacks, “We are impressed with the company's focus to rake in more profits through customer retention, market share gain, new product introductions, broadband expansion and improved sales and marketing initiatives. The company is trying to derive benefits from the growing Business Service Segment. Meanwhile, foraying into North Carolina through the rollout of ‘Vantage TV’ IPTV and broadband services also bode well. Howover, the company continues to suffer from the loss of legacy fixed telephony business to wireless and decline in access lines and wireless backhaul revenues due to customer migration to Ethernet solutions at lower price points. Reports about outages, bad telephone service and problems with billing have sprouted. Over the past three months, the stock price moved down 52.43% failing to beat the Zacks Wireline–Regional (Rural) industry's 268.90% growth.”

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently commented on the stock. Vetr raised shares of Frontier Communications Corporation from a buy rating to a strong-buy rating and set a $3.09 price objective on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 27th. Citigroup Inc. raised shares of Frontier Communications Corporation from a sell rating to a neutral rating and set a $1.75 price objective on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, May 3rd. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on shares of Frontier Communications Corporation from $2.30 to $4.20 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research note on Thursday, March 30th. Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (The) cut shares of Frontier Communications Corporation from a neutral rating to a sell rating and set a $1.50 price objective on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, March 22nd. They noted that the move was a valuation call. Finally, Macquarie reaffirmed a hold rating and set a $2.65 price objective on shares of Frontier Communications Corporation in a research note on Thursday, April 13th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have issued a hold rating, four have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. The stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $2.97.

Frontier Communications Corporation (NASDAQ:FTR) traded down 0.76% during trading on Friday, hitting $15.63. 2,315,029 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged. The firm’s market cap is $1.23 billion. Frontier Communications Corporation has a 12-month low of $13.13 and a 12-month high of $78.30. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $16.69 and its 200 day moving average price is $31.18.

Frontier Communications Corporation (NASDAQ:FTR) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, May 2nd. The utilities provider reported ($0.08) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.05) by $0.03. The firm had revenue of $2.36 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.34 billion. Frontier Communications Corporation had a positive return on equity of 0.19% and a negative net margin of 2.65%. Equities analysts forecast that Frontier Communications Corporation will post ($3.85) earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 29th. Investors of record on Friday, September 15th will be issued a $0.60 dividend. This represents a $2.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 15.36%. This is an increase from Frontier Communications Corporation’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.04. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 14th. Frontier Communications Corporation’s dividend payout ratio is -38.11%.

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Texas Permanent School Fund increased its position in shares of Frontier Communications Corporation by 0.8% in the second quarter. Texas Permanent School Fund now owns 856,469 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $994,000 after buying an additional 7,154 shares during the period. World Asset Management Inc boosted its stake in shares of Frontier Communications Corporation by 14.5% in the second quarter. World Asset Management Inc now owns 104,176 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $121,000 after buying an additional 13,158 shares in the last quarter. Kornitzer Capital Management Inc. KS boosted its stake in shares of Frontier Communications Corporation by 27.5% in the second quarter. Kornitzer Capital Management Inc. KS now owns 174,000 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $202,000 after buying an additional 37,516 shares in the last quarter. Municipal Employees Retirement System of Michigan boosted its stake in shares of Frontier Communications Corporation by 1,090.1% in the second quarter. Municipal Employees Retirement System of Michigan now owns 442,970 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $514,000 after buying an additional 405,750 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Washington Trust Bank boosted its stake in shares of Frontier Communications Corporation by 13.8% in the second quarter. Washington Trust Bank now owns 117,578 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $136,000 after buying an additional 14,232 shares in the last quarter.

About Frontier Communications Corporation

Frontier Communications Corporation (Frontier) is a provider of communications services in the United States. The Company offers a portfolio of communications services for residential and business customers. Its products and services include data and Internet services, video services, voice services, access services and customer premise equipment (CPE).

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