NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Verizon Communications rose 1.12% to $49.45 in morning trading Monday ahead of the telecommunication company's first-quarter earnings report scheduled for before the market open Tuesday. The consensus estimate calls for Verizon to report earnings of 95 cents a share on revenue of $32.27 billion. In the first quarter 2014, the company reported earnings of 91 cents a share, which beat the estimate of 87 cents a share from analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. Revenue totaled $30.818 billion, which surpassed analysts' expectations of $30.698 billion. In the fourth quarter 2014, Verizon posted earnings of 71 cents a share, which matched the consensus EPS estimate. Revenue totaled $33.192 billion, which surpassed analysts' expectations of $32.694 billion. Verizon Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Francis J. Shammo will present the results on a webcast starting at 8:30 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday. Insight from TheStreet's Research Team Jim Cramer commented on Verizon in a recent post on Real Money in which he rated Warren Buffett's top 10 highest-yielding stocks. Here is what Cramer had to say about the stock: Next up would be Verizon, the phone company with its 4.45%. I am torn on Verizon because that yield insures that the stock's not going to go down much in a domestic slowdown. But the growth is severely constrained by the incredibly aggressive behavior of its competitors, notably Sprint and T-Mobile . The latter is fighting a guerilla war against both AT&T and Sprint while the former is offering deals that, up front, seem too compelling to ignore. Neither competitor has the coverage that Verizon Wireless has. But coverage is growing for both even as the cost is insane to try to duplicate Verizon's footprint. Verizon does have Fios, which is a terrific product. But it is going up against entrenched interests. It also is burdened by landlines, which only work at pipes for the Internet because, otherwise, the end of landline adoption, except for businesses, has arrived. You can only tolerate slow growth with small boosts in dividends for so long before you recognize that Verizon is little more than a high-yield bond with an increasing coupon, although that's nothing to sneeze at in this regime. - Jim Cramer, 'I Rate Buffett's Top-10-Yielding Holdings' originally published 4/6/2015 on Real Money Want more information like this from Jim Cramer BEFORE your stock moves? Learn more about Real Money now! Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS INC as a Buy with a ratings score of B-. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation: "We rate VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS INC (VZ) a BUY. This is driven by a few notable strengths, which we believe should have a greater impact than any weaknesses, and should give investors a better performance opportunity than most stocks we cover. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, notable return on equity, expanding profit margins and increase in stock price during the past year. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had sub par growth in net income." You can view the full analysis from the report here: VZ Ratings Report
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