{"id":11083,"date":"2022-11-15T21:34:03","date_gmt":"2022-11-16T02:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/?p=11083"},"modified":"2022-11-15T21:34:04","modified_gmt":"2022-11-16T02:34:04","slug":"atts-dividend-yield-falls-below-verizons-what-that-means-for-the-stocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/?p=11083","title":{"rendered":"AT&T\u2019s dividend yield falls below Verizon\u2019s. What that means for the stocks."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

AT&T shares have rallied over the past few weeks as Wall Street warms to the company’s execution<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

AT&T Inc. no longer seems the most unloved name in wireless, and that manifested in one milestone that occurred last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While AT&T shares\u00a0T<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>rallied in the wake of the company\u2019s Thursday morning earnings report, which showed continued subscriber gains, Verizon\u00a0VZ<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>shares floundered as the wireless rival posted its third straight quarter of subscriber declines Friday morning. Amid the price activity Thursday, AT&T\u2019s dividend yield fell below Verizon\u2019s for the first time since March 6, 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A rising dividend yield isn\u2019t always a good sign, as it can signal more negative investor sentiment as the stock\u2019s price comes down. On the flip side, in AT&T\u2019s case, the falling yield comes as Wall Street increasingly warms to the company\u2019s execution and prospects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AT&T\u2019s dividend yield was as high as 7.81% on Oct. 12, but the stock yielded 6.12% as of Wednesday as the stock rose 24% over that span. Verizon currently yields 7.14%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morgan Stanley analyst Simon Flannery, who highlighted in a Wednesday note to clients that AT&T\u2019s 17% outperformance last week brought its dividend yield \u201cinside VZ\u2019s for the first time in several years,\u201d wrote that AT&T\u2019s latest earnings \u201clooked even cleaner\u201d in light of Verizon\u2019s more mixed results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe view AT&T\u2019s results as good enough for now as they should provide enough comfort for investors looking for a relatively defensive name into year-end, while shares should also have support from a dividend yield that remains >6%,\u201d Flannery continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AT&T\u2019s dividend\u2014and its ability to support it\u2014are of strong interest to investors, and the company sought to reassure investors about its positioning after recording $3.8 billion in free-cash flow from continuing operations during the third quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe hope this healthy free-cash flow for the quarter gives you confidence in our ability to achieve our target for free-cash flow in the $14 billion range for the year, a level that is more than ample to support our $8 billion dividend commitment,\u201d Chief Executive John Stankey said on the company\u2019s earnings call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verizon\u2019s earnings call also contained mention of dividend commitments, as Chief Financial Officer Matt Ellis noted that the company recently increased its dividend for the 16th consecutive year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe recognize the importance of the dividend to our shareholders, and we intend to continue to put the board in a position to approve annual increases,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AT&T shares have rallied over the past few weeks as Wall Street warms to the company’s execution AT&T Inc. no<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[254,3421,3422],"tags":[3766,3431,888,3425,3735],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11083"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11084,"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11083\/revisions\/11084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}