BCE Inc. (BCE.TO)

Buying a $60 Jan/17 Call for $1 and Selling a $40 Put? This is a great high dividend paying stock. It is in a mature industry and is a mature company. They have increased their dividends about 9 times in the last 5 years. The Call options are relatively cheap because it is a high dividend paying company. He is not sure that he sees huge growth in the company. By Buying a Call and Selling a Put, what you have actually done is synthetically created a position on the company, so it is going to act pretty much the same as the company stock, up or down. To trade options on this company, he would be writing Puts closer to where the stock’s price is now, may be a $55 Put. If you really think there is a lot of opportunity on the upside, which he doesn’t really think so, you can stay with the $60 Call. He would close out the Put and Sell another Put at the money.

(Top Pick Jul 2/14, Up 18.12%) It’s almost like a fixed income. The management is first rate. They know what they are doing. A 10-12% yield is a good objective going forward. He expects another dividend increase soon.

Telecoms? He would look at BCE (BCE-T) or Telus (T-T), but not Rogers (RCI.B-T). The CRTC has given a bit of breathing room here. They are probably going to push through a 4^th carrier, but have probably kicked it down for a year or 2. Both names are very investable at these levels. They continue to benefit from gaining share at the high-end and healthy ARPU growth. Strong revenue growth, which is allowing them to be aggressive on retaining customers.

His model price is $42.74, a -20%. If interest rates are set to move higher, a lot of these companies will feel the pain. Interest sensitives will go down. He sees this going a little lower in the short term. He would look at $48.12 as an entry point.

Stock vs. Stock. BCE-T vs. T-T. BCE-T has a fair market value of $61. It if hits that again it will set back. T-T is the same. It is in a rising phase right now but is not the exciting value for you to make it half your portfolio.

Likes this as a core position. Thinks that in 10 years it is going to be very different because of their exciting content. Chart shows a nice upward channel. If it broke down through the $52 level, we would probably see $46 come in really quickly. Long-term it is a good space to be in.

This is one of those names where you are getting quality and an established business. That is the good side. The bad side is you are not going to see double-digit share price appreciation for the most part. Over the last 52 weeks, the stock is up 7.8%, which is more than what he would generally expect from a name like this.

A good solid telecom company. We continue to use more and more mobile communication services in our everyday lives. This is his favourite out of the 3 Canadian ones. The best dividend payer. They will continue to do well.

Royal Bank (RY-T) or BCE (BCE-T)? In terms of one or the other, it is hard when it is in such a divisive space. This telecom has been bulking up on the content side. In his view it is the best one to own on the wireless side. Both companies pay good dividends, and both are best of breed. If you had to pick one over the other, it would be this for the short term.

A good 5% dividend. Prefers BPF.UN-T.

Sold all of her telco holdings about a year ago because of regulatory concerns. Thinks some of those concerns have been alleviated somewhat. The reason you tend to own telecoms is because they have very strong cash flows and provide 4%-5% dividends. There are other parts of the market she would prefer to invest in for income purposes.

Had good solid numbers in the quarter. You are not buying this for growth; you are buying it for yield plus a little bit of growth. 4.5%-5% yield plus 3%-4% growth and the multiple is now down to probably a base, which gives you an 8%-9% return.

Telecoms do not have any distinguishable seasonal trends. Basically the higher yielding equities have less correlation with the market. From a seasonal point of view, you could actually invest in these in the summer time. The chart is showing a bit of an intermediate-term weakness. We are still a week or 2 away from seasonal weakness from broad equity markets, so there is still time for investors to kick into this thing and really chase the yield. For now, stay away from this and get into it towards May or even into the summertime.

He prefers this to Rogers (RCI.B-T) because Rogers has a much bigger footprint in wireless, and they have been losing market share and subscribers.

Are the yields of 4.5%-5.5% sustainable on BCE (BCE-T), Verizon (VZ-N) and Vodafone (VOD-Q)? Most of the dividends are sustainable and he thinks they can afford to grow their dividends. BCE trades at a very high multiple at almost 16X earnings. Why people are worried about BCE is that it is not only a telephone company, but also a communications company. Verizon and Vodafone gives you much more of a pure play.