Rogers Communications (B) (RCI.B.TO)

(A Top Pick Jan 25/18, Up 24%) 2.6% dividend. The best performer in this space in the past 3-5 years. He likes telecoms because they're defensive yet growth and has a long runway through phone upgrades.

T-T vs. RCI.B-T vs. BCE-T. Nobody knows which one will do better. The best way to play it in the utility space is ZWU-T, which gives exposure to Telco's, pipelines and utilities. These things are interest rate sensitive so you will not get much capital gains and you have to be cautious.

Likes it for the organic growth. Media assets are undervalued. Not a bad valuation, a 2.8% dividend which is probably going to grow, a 6-7% growth rate. A defensive growth name.

Like Bell and Telus, this is a telecommunications company. It has more exposure to cable and less to the telephone than BCE and Telus. All three are subject to cord-cutting and higher interest rates will affect their stock prices. However, it is a stable company and could be owned in a portfolio. He owns BCE rather than Rogers. Both give decent income. When growth stocks go out of favour, this will be something you want to add to the portfolio.

It's an industry that must transition rapidly. The infrastructure build for 5G is huge, demanding a lot of capital, but 5G will move a lot more data. U.S. telecoms just reported well, but there's pressure on the Canadian ones. Consumers want more for less me, and the capex to achieve 5G is huge.

Rates sensitivity of the stock has affected it. He prefers BCE Inc. (BCE-T) as it is more diversified and has put a lot of fiber in the ground and that will drive growth for a while.

Great subscriber numbers. It is getting close to what he thinks it should be valued at. Most people don't recognize the value in their sports franchises. It has been stalled out. They have benefits of being part of a great oligopoly.

It provides an attractive dividend yield as do the other large telecom companies. She doesn’t own them, preferring the utilities. All of the Telcos have pulled back, though Rogers has already recovered a bit. They could be interesting at this price to people who are looking for income. Consumption of data is increasing and even though Shaw is entering the space, it does not look as though any of the players wants to be competitive, so prices are not threatened.

(Past Top Pick, June 13, 2017, Up 6%) They pulled back recently after a good Q1. He expects good results for the rest of the year, pushed by wireless momentum and high-speed demand. He believes they can spin out their sports division, so there's room to grow. They have good assets.

All the telecoms have faced headwinds lately and Rogers has not increased its dividend since 2015. There has been a lot going into capital spending on their cellular network. It is too expensive at this time. He holds it, but is not adding.

Morphed itself from a cable company to a mobility company. Over the last number of years it has been subscriber uptake that has driven them. The weakness is on the enterprise side, which T-T is strong in. Generally this one is a utility with reasonable growth at the end of the day. The future has to do with how fast they will deploy 5 G.