The largest US wireless carrier and Income Portfolio stalwart, Verizon Communications (VZ), has seen its shares surge since a strong earnings report a couple weeks ago. Despite facing rival AT&T (T) which is privy to an exclusive contract for Apple’s iPhone, Verizon was able to add 665,000 contract customers in the quarter, easily besting AT&T’s 496,000 new customers. The impressive sign-up numbers were largely due to a smattering of new phones offered on the network, and based on Google’s Android operating system. The new devices came from multiple manufacturers including Motorola and HTC.

Investors cheered as the strong contract numbers also translated into financial results. The company reported profits of 58 cents a share, which, while down from 63 cents in the year-earlier period, beat Wall Street consensus estimates by 2 cents per share. Company-wide revenues fell less than a percent from the year-earlier to $26.8 billion, while those stemming from the company’s wireless division rose 3.4 percent to $16 billion. This indicates that Verizon is steadily growing the wireless side of the business to replace flagging landline sales.

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Short-Term Key: Negative  Long-Term Key: -81 (Neutral-to-Negative) Read more...

As we head into holiday shopping time, third-quarter earnings season is coming to a close with 95 percent of S&P 500 companies having reported. There have been many upside surprises (80 percent), but as consumer spending and the underlying economy have remained weak – most have been due to maneuvering by management, including inventory controls and cost cutting, as well as lowered analyst expectations.  Read more...