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Posted
Oct 26 2009, 12:58 PM
by
Jim Jubak
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Third-quarter earnings, announced before the opening on Monday, should be a reminder of why I added Verizon (VZ) to my Dividend Income portfolio rather than to any of my more growth-oriented portfolios on October 9th.
Making enough money to pay the stock's 6.6% dividend doesn't seem to be a problem; getting enough growth in the new businesses to compensate for the decline in the old businesses continues to be a challenge.
The company did manage to beat Wall Street's earnings estimates for the quarter by a penny a share. Revenue came in as expected at $27.3 billion, up 10.2% from the third quarter of 2008. The total number of wireless customers grew to 89 million. That's a 26% increase.
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Posted
Oct 20 2009, 07:08 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Investors should take a long, hard look at Apple (AAPL) shares before jumping into the stock, writes Brett Arends of The Wall Street Journal.
A better investment in smartphones might be in network operators, which are cheap, he writes. Those include Verizon Communications (VZ), AT&T (T) and Vodafone (VOD), which have dividend yields in the 5% to 6% range. Arends lists a number of reasons why, even after Apple's impressive earnings report this week, investors should tread carefully. "The case for or against investing in Apple has little to do with whether it's a good company (it is) or whether it makes good products (it does)," he writes. "It isn't even about whether the company can beat expectations. It's about whether the shares, priced at these levels, make for a sound investment."
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Posted
Oct 09 2009, 10:40 AM
by
Jim Jubak
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Why? That's always the first question to ask when you see a common stock like Verizon (VZ) trading with a dividend yield of 6.52%.
That's so much higher than the yield on the Standard & Poor's 500 index (2.1% as of last week) that any reasonable investor wants to know what the market thinks is wrong with this company.
In this case, I think it's easy to figure out why enough investors hate this stock to drive the yield up so far -- and to conclude that the market is wrong in the degree of its worry.
That makes Verizon a buy for the investor in search of reasonably safe but high yields.
Bing: Compare Verizon with Sprint and AT&T
Here's what's wrong with Verizon:
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Posted
Sep 23 2009, 04:06 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon (AMZN), is known for being eccentric, but his new handset offer may be taking that act a bit too far. Cell phones using the AT&T (T) wireless network were selling on Amazon yesterday for one penny each. If the program is a success it is likely to come back.
The only product not available at the remarkable price is the Apple (AAPL) iPhone.
The purchase of the phone must be made with a two-year AT&T wireless subscription. The phones also come with free two-day shipping.
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Posted
Sep 22 2009, 10:26 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
My sister wanted to get Apple's iPhone, but the service was so bad in Tucson, Ariz., that she decided against it. And Cnet's Elinor Mills writes that iPhone calls from her San
Francisco apartment are dropping or are garbled. While the iPhone itself draws raves from adoring fans, AT&T's (T) wireless service leaves much to be desired for some. Mills says her iPhone service is so bad it's often easier to have a Web video conference than make a simple voice call. She called AT&T to ask why, and was told that maybe the thickness of her walls or the network demand were to blame. AT&T insisted the issue was not newsworthy. And presto: That's the fastest way to make sure a reporter treats something as newsworthy. Bing: How people deal with iPhone dropped calls
Mills' story seems to be touching a nerve,
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Posted
Aug 31 2009, 04:04 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
There are two ways to look at the economic relationship between Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T), and both may be accurate. AT&T says it has signed up 10 million iPhone owners for its long-term calling and data plans. Many of those customers have come from other cellular providers. AT&T is thus adding new, and perhaps profitable, business.
On the other hand, AT&T pays Apple an estimated $400 a phone. AT&T probably has to hold onto its iPhone customers for the full two years of their subscription plan to make a lot of money.
The Wall Street Journal recently pointed out that AT&T has other smartphones that it does not have to pay handset companies like Samsung and Nokia (NOK) as much as $400 to acquire.
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Posted
Aug 26 2009, 04:03 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 American Internet speeds are slow, very slow, by international standards. That may be one reason the $787 billion economic stimulus package has a large financial commitment to building broadband infrastructure.
The U.S. ranks 28th among large countries in Internet connection speeds, according to new data from the Communications Workers of America. The organization has a reason to track the information. Many of the union members’ jobs rely on cable and telecom firms continuing to invest to build larger broadband systems, particularly the communications giants Comcast (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (TWC), AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ).
The Internet speed champions are led by South Korea, Japan, Sweden, and the Netherlands.
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Posted
Jul 30 2009, 01:21 PM
by
Tobin Smith
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Certainly a lot of Sprint executives and shareholders hoped the launch of the new Palm (PALM) Pre smartphone in June would give Sprint (S) a revenue boost. As the exclusive wireless carrier for the Pre, Sprint was poised to reap big rewards if the Pre took off big.
Sprint still claims the Pre launch was succesful, but when the company released its earnings for the second quarter yesterday, it was clear the Pre wasn't successful enough to give Sprint the boost it so desperately needs.
Sprint reported a loss of $384 million, or 13 cents per share in the three months ending June 30. That was an even bigger loss than the $344 million it lost in the same quarter of 2008.
A big culprit was a drop in wireless revenues of 9%. Sprint saw 991,000 annual contract-signing customers disappear. In the same quarter, Verizon (VZ) added 1.1 million subscribers and AT&T (T) added 1.4 million
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Posted
Jul 28 2009, 07:34 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Analysts have hoped that the rate at which Americans become unemployed will slow in the second half of 2009. There has been some evidence that the period in which the economy would lose 600,000 or more jobs a month is over. That may not be the case.
The press has observed that layoffs are one of the main reasons behind improved earnings in the second quarter. Sales at many companies are not up, but expenses are down, in many cases considerably. But, second quarter results may not only be the result of jobs cuts; they may be the cause for more, which will mean that the period in which the economy faces rapidly rising unemployment is not over.
Verizon (VZ) announced that it will cut 8,000 jobs. Its results for the last reporting period were below par. The recession is one reason for that. Another is that customers are canceling their landline phones and using cellular phones or VoIP instead. The poor economy and new technology are overwhelming Verizon’s old way of doing business. The same thing has happened to AT&T (T).
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Posted
Jul 21 2009, 03:52 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Wall Street analysts expect Apple’s earnings to do better than estimates. This is not surprising. Apple (AAPL) has a history of setting low expectations about its figures and then beating them handily. It has become a game of chess between the company and experts who follow it.
Some analysts tracking the company go so far as to send people to Apple stores and other retailers to count how products are selling. Others check with companies that supply components to Apple for its products like the iPhone and Mac to gauge demand.
Apple’s results should be pulled down by the same gravity that has hurt the consumer electronics and PC markets. The relentless slowing of the economy has made both individual and business purchasers of computers slow to upgrade their hardware. The Apple iPhone is more expensive than most other handsets. A recession is hardly a good time to overpay for a phone.
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