Thursday, July 22, 2010

Are High Yield Telecom Stocks Calling?


You own electric utilities, you own natural gas utilities, you own water utilities, but you still want more diversification for your income portfolio. How about telecommunication stocks, which could be considered semi-utilities?

There are some disadvantages; land lines are decreasing, cell phone usage is increasing, and more and more households are now using cell phones as their primary if not their only phone. The phone companies aren't standing still; they are pushing plenty of other services besides the usual telecommunications. Plus, the negative news has already been built into the price of many of these stocks, and then some.

This drop in stock prices has caused the yields to go up, creating some interesting income opportunities. WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has turned up about a dozen of these stocks yielding around 4% or more. As a matter of fact, six of the stocks yield more than 7%.

As an example, Alaska Communications Systems Group, Inc. (ALSK) is a provider of both wireless and landlines in the state of Alaska. The company has a market cap of $397 million, has a price to earnings ratio of 11.9 and pays a yield of 9.8%. The operating cash flow of $85.6 million significantly covers the dividend payout of $38.3 million.

Another high paying telecom stock is CenturyLink, Inc. (CTL), with a 8.3% payout. This Louisiana based company pays $833 million in dividends, easily covered by the $1.81 billion in operating cash flow. The market cap is $10.7 billion, with a PE ratio of 10.7.

To see the rest of the high paying telecommunications companies, check out the free Excel database of high yield telecom stocks, at wsnn.com.

Author does not own any of the above.

By Stockerblog.com

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