Shares of Comcast Corporation CMCSA gained 3.5% yesterday, touching a 52-week high of $62.31. However, the company ended yesterday’s trading session a trifle lower at $62.25. The company’s shares have gained 8.5% over the past six months buoyed by blockbuster releases like Fifty Shades of Grey, Furious 7 and Jurassic World.
Owned by Comcast, Universal Pictures’ latest release Jurassic World crossed a milestone by collecting nearly $1.246 billion worldwide within a short 17 days of release. Notably, the production cost of the movie stands at approximately $150 million.
In Apr 2015, Universal Pictures had released the super hit flick Furious 7 which has so far contributed more than $1.51 billion to the coffers. The project had a production budget of around $250 million. The movie, which was released in the Easter weekend, was the highest opening week box-office grosser in the month of April in the U.S.
In Feb 2015, Universal Pictures had tasted another box-office success with Fifty Shades of Grey, which generated $85 million in the very first week of release. The much-controversial flick has garnered more than $566 million at the box-office. Interestingly, the movie’s production cost was just a little over $40 million.
The box-office success of the movies will likely help NBC Universal regain its theatrical market share in 2015.
Starting May 2015, Comcast has been rolling out fiber-based 2 gigabits per second (2 Gbps) residential broadband Internet services in Atlanta and Greater Chicago. Known as Gigabit Pro, this new service will run on the fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) technology. Comcast is expecting to reach Gigabit Pro to around 18 million users out of its nearly 22 million high-speed data subscribers across the country by the end of this year. The remaining subscribers will be covered in 2016.
Despite the strong price appreciation, the stock has room for plenty of upside, given the positive estimate revisions witnessed over the last 60 days. For the current year, the company has witnessed fourteen upward revisions over the last 60 days with the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings moving up from $3.25 to $3.35.
Other Stocks to Consider
Comcast currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Other favourably-ranked stocks in the same sector are Shenandoah Telecommunications Co. SHEN, TELUS Corporation TU and The Walt Disney Company DIS. All these stocks hold the same Zacks Rank as Comcast.
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report >>
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
Be the first to comment