any real danger in owning T for the dividend?

I own a sizable position in T and I’ve been adding to it every time it dips below $28 since this time last year. As interest rates crashed I moved a large amount of my savings that was sitting in a high yield savings account to T and MO as a “safe” haven.

This is also a hedge against much of my speculative and tech focused portfolio.

As of this post I’m up about 6% on T over the last calendar year and 22% on MO. It’s working just fine and I feel comfortable with a large chunk of money there.

ETA - those figures are price gains only and don’t factor in the dividend $$ made.

Well free cash flow still matters when you’re paying it out in a fat dividend.

That being said, I don’t believe the dividend of T is at risk in the intermediate future.

I'm guessing the danger is a lower stock price if interest rates rise and that you have some opportunity cost by not owning a stock or fund that appreciates in value.

They have more debt than most sovereign governments TBTF

T
Does not have the spectrum that T-Mobile has
Does not invest like VZ for higher frequency bandwidth

$148 billion debt
22 billion lease obligations
18.3 billion post retirement obligations
That is equates to 3.6 times EBITDA
3.6 equates to a Ba rating - below investment grade

The balance sheet is overstretched
They fighting on too many fronts:
Disney for streaming
T-Mobile for cellular
Commercial wireline business that is rapidly shrinking
Needing capital investment for broadband business

They will cut the dividend or they will have to abandon at least 2 fronts - pick your poison.

other that that dave portmay etf, i've never owned etf's idk why but it's like my mind can't trust them. I just don't want T to end up like GE, i'm upsidedown for years on their stock.

quote:

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ATT is a large inefficient company but as others have said it’s a utility with no significant growth prospects on the horizon. It trades in a tight range.

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Part of the thing that weirds me out with ATT stock is it got hit hard during the covid crash trading from the high 30s to high 20s and a year later it still hasnt recovered at all to pre-covid numbers, in fact, still tending to trade in the high 20s very often or $30 range.

Seems like it really felt the sell off and the people who sold off arent buying back in.

ATT should be printing money but they are not.

How is HBO Max working out for them since it debuted May a year ago?

Seems ATT had to merge with BellSouth for BellSouth's cash reserve, to bail T out back in '07.

does qyld deposit dividends just like you would a stock? probably a dumb question.

i'm a buy and hold person, and GE keeps creeping back up and i have a significant position. I know etfs are just a basket of stocks but for some reason i just like owning a single stock i know it doesn't make sense.