My Investment In AT&T

I've held shares of AT&T stock in my portfolio off and on for the past 3 years. Early last year I sold all shares, which I had purchased when the price was down, at around a 25% profit. I had already gotten paid several quarters worth of dividends and got an additional cash and stock payout when my shares in the original AT&T were bought out by SBC communications. I thought SBC had the right idea to change their name to AT&T when the buyout was complete. After all, if you wanted a franchise type name and a name with some great history behind it, you couldn't ask for a much better than AT&T.

At any rate, I sold my shares out to take the profit on the increased stock price, figuring that I could buy back in on a price drop and make the company one of my core holdings. Sure enough the price did go down and I was able to buy back more shares than I owned originally. Barring any unforeseen occurrences I think the company will do well for several years to come. They currently pay $1.60 per share in dividends, which represents a 4.1% yield on their recent price of $38.72 per share. Their earnings per share of $1.94 should be more than adequate to maintain the dividend and fund operations. In addition the company has very little debt, a great management team and an exclusive contract with Apple for the iPhone, so I'm thinking things are looking pretty good for future profits. While the share price is down some from the 52 week high of $42.97, I've found that it has added some stability to my portfolio during the current drop in the overall stock market.

What makes this investment even more appealing for me personally is the fact that I have been a customer of AT&T for the past 2 years. All my personal phone service is through them and I've been extremely happy with their service. I got a great deal for my cell phone package over the Internet which included a free Motorola Razor V3. So every month when I go online to pay my bill I really don't mind so much, because I know I'm going to get some of that money back in the form of dividends each quarter. What could be better than that?