Investing Topics: Verizon

The Conrad’s Utility Investor Portfolios officially launched on July 31, 2013. Since that time, the Dow Jones Utility Average is off -2.3 percent, including dividends paid.

My Aggressive Income Portfolio is up by 9.3 percent, while the Conservative Income Portfolio has returned 3.3 percent.

No group of dividend-paying stocks has been more profitably shorted the past few years than high yield telecoms. Short sellers make their money when stock prices fall. And sector companies have not only cut dividends eight times since 2009, but we’ve seen a pair of bankruptcies as well.

AT&T Inc (NYSE: T) was the only Conrad’s Utility Investor Portfolio pick to report numbers last week. Takeaway one is quite positive: The results followed closely those of arch-rival and co-Big Two US communications company Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ).

We’ve yet to see third quarter results for most of the US communications industry. But it’s not too soon to ask what happened to the assertion the Big Two US Telecoms — AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) — would be skewered by rivals’ cut rate pricing and a cheaper iPhone.

Earnings season is now underway for the Conrad’s Utility Investor portfolios, with Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (NYSE: KMP) and Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) the first to report full numbers.

Who says the bond market is washed out? Certainly not Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ).

The company’s record $49 billion bond sale has not only locked in financing for its $130 billion buyout of Vodafone Plc’s (London: VOD, NYSE: VOD) minority stake in Verizon Wireless. But it was actually doubled, eliminating the need to raise funds in Europe.

There was plenty to talk about this week from telecom to utilities to energy MLPs.

Here’s the news from our Portfolio holdings over the past week. 

It’s been mere days since Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) announced it will buy Vodafone PLC’s (London: VOD, NYSE: VOD) 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless. And scores of articles and opinions have already been posted.

That’s understandable. At roughly $130 billion, only Vodafone’s takeover of Mannesmann and AOL’s (NYSE: AOL) purchase of Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) rank larger in dollars. And both of those deals went off at the inflated valuations of the 1999-2000 generational top for technology and telecom.