Verizon price target raised to $56 from $50 at Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer raised the firm’s price target on Verizon (VZ) to $56 from $50 and keeps an Outperform rating on the shares. The firm says channel checks suggest Verizon’s subscriber glow share is continuing and the $5B in expense reductions have strong visibility helped by the 10% headcount reduction and lower CapEx. Asset rationalization is another large $500M bucket, as are reduced third party vendor and outsourced contractor expenses. Oppenheimer sees further room for upside on cost reduction and monetization if Verizon were to enlist DOX to modernize its OSS/BSS.