AT&T (T)

It’s in the process of going through a hearing to conduct a major acquisition. It is going to take a lot of debt to do so. If it is allowed its will be over $200 billion. A significant part of their EBITDA is from their old wire lines business. That is declining rapidly. If interest rates move up rapidly these companies that use leverage and have relatively low growth business could be affected.

The technical chart is not showing any upward momentum. Policy factors and other issues are not fundamentally supportive. The sector is a bond proxy and this is not the time to be investing in this space as interest rates are moving up. He questions if the dividend is safe. This is not a defensive stock with rising interest rates, which he expects will rise to 4%. Yield 6%.

The market does not think T-Mobile and Sprint will merge. There is other competition when it comes to how we communicate. T-N has to spend a lot of money to upgrade their systems to 5G. Their dividend coverage is getting less and less. He prefers T-Mobile.

Consumers are cutting their landlines while youngsters are watching/downloading content for free, a huge struggle for all telecoms anywhere. They (and Verizon) are struggling to build their business. He stays away from this industry.
Doesn't see growth in this space. Internet and wireless are the only areas of growth, but there is pricing pressure here.

AT&T vs. Verizon? Verizon is the better-quality company. Both offer good dividends, but Verizon has less debt and a better network. If you want dividend income, go with AT&T. If you want growth, go with Verizon.

Stuck in a range. Has tried to go higher, but won't go far. You're probably holding it for dividends.

A lot is happening in telecoms. Unfortunately, you are fighting a real headwind. The chart shows lower highs and lower lows. There are probably higher rates over time. This name is going to face a wall of sellers, as every time this creeps up a little, more people are going to want to Sell to get their money back. He wouldn't advise anyone to look at this space right now.

Don’t add more. It is a tough, competitive market. These are your lifeboat stocks. They are to protect you on the downside if we ever have a correction. It won’t keep up with the broader market, however.

As a buy and hold, blue chip, dividend stock, you would not get hurt by this stock. People need less access to traditional TV now. A home phone is not all that relevant today. It will be hard for investors to pay higher valuations for the same kind of earnings. He thinks there is a risk of the multiple falling slowly over time.

He loves the dividend on this. You’re getting over a 5% yield. Management has done a very good job through the acquisition of Time Warner, because they understand that cell phones and cell phone pricing can’t hold up forever. Eventually you are simply going to be paying for a data plan and not on minutes anymore. The company not only bought DirecTV, but also Time Warner, and are trying to become an end to end media company where they control cell, data, the pipe, and then media as well. You can stream HBO for free through your AT&T data plan, which they are using to lure subscribers. A very creative way to use that part of the portfolio. Dividend yield of 5.6%.

To understand this company, it is worthwhile to look at the whole sector. The ETF (IYZ-N) looks pretty sick. Wire line telecom is not an attractive business. When people are saying the yield is good, that really means the price is dropping. You don’t want to own things that act like bonds in a rising rate environment.

There is nothing wrong with this or others, other than that there is a tremendous amount of competition, particularly on the wireless side. Telecoms is a defensive sector, and is not going to perform well in an environment where the economy is expanding, and people will be buying technology, financials, consumer discretionary and industrials. It pays almost a 5.5% dividend. You have to be careful about chasing higher yielders. This is not expected to grow dividends in any significant way, over the next several years. Would treat this with caution.

This has a bit of a headwind. In a rising interest rate environment, telecoms tend not to do well. In the midst of buying Time Warner, which has not been approved yet. They are making decisions on whether they want to be a landline company or a cell company, which will affect their future fundamental growth. He has stepped away from telecoms, because there is a lot of unknowns, some of it with regulators.

Kind of ho-hum here. Down 11% year to date while the S&P is up 10%. It does offer a juicy 5.2% dividend yield. His concern is, where is the growth. Landline is not growing and is going in reverse. Even the wireless service is a very mature market and doesn’t seem to be growing. Now they are throwing money at acquisitions and have paid a lot of money for Dish to expand their video offerings, but he is not sure they are getting what they bargained for. They are in the process of closing the deal with Time Warner, a fantastic company, but will the synergies actually develop. He thinks they flatline here.

Sell a $40 Sept 2018 Put for $5.25 and Buy a $40 Sept 2018 Call. He doesn’t have a strong opinion on whether the Time Warner deal goes through or not. It is a political issue that they will have to deal with, and it is going to be a competition issue. Trying to predict the direction the US government is likely to take on anything, is like trying to guess Wayne Gretzky’s next move in a hockey game. If you are happy to own the stock at $35 whether or not the deal goes through, and you are comfortable with it, not a bad scenario.