Topic: How To Invest

Dividend Advisor Hotline – Friday, December 22, 2017

Article Excerpt

AT&T INC., $38.74, New York symbol T, is the largest wireless provider in the U.S. It also sells TV cable packages, and high-speed Internet and landline phone services. Starting with the February 2018 payment, the company will raise its quarterly dividend by 2.0%. Investors will then receive $0.50 a share, up from $0.49. The new annual rate of $2.00 yields a high 5.2%. AT&T has raised the annual payment for 34 consecutive years. Meantime, the court trial over its proposed acquisition of media company Time Warner Inc. (New York symbol TWX) will begin on March 19, 2018. The U.S. Department of Justice wants to block the merger. AT&T plans to use Time Warner’s content to attract more users to its wireless and TV services. However, the government claims the deal would let AT&T (which also owns the DirecTV satellite TV system) unfairly increase the prices that rival TV networks pay to access Time Warner programming. If successful, AT&T will pay $85.4 billion in cash…