TIP OF THE WEEK - Find Corporate Bond Info On Your Stocks Easier Than You Ever Imagined

Find Corporate Bond Info on Your Stocks Easier Than You Ever Imagined

Jason Brizic

Apr. 8, 2011

The high dividend stock investor must be aware of a company’s corporate bond exposure to understand its potential threat to earning power.  A surge in bond interest due can threaten the earnings available for dividends.

You can avoid a tragic investment mistake by examining a company’s bond exposure before you make a common stock purchase.  Two stocks with the same earning power can have different bond exposures.  It is not enough to know the overall long-term debt total.  You must go slightly deeper to gain an edge over the market’s other investors.

Morningstar has an excellent corporate bond analysis feature within its stock pages to help you quickly, graphically, and easily understand the magnitude and maturity of a company’s corporate bond issuances.  Many high dividend stocks are large well established companies like AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) have many outstanding bonds.

Click on the link below to go directly to Morningstar’s bond tab for AT&T to see what I’m talking about:

http://quicktake.morningstar.com/StockNet/bonds.aspx?Symbol=T&Country=USA

Here is the link to Verizon’s (VZ) bond tab:

http://quicktake.morningstar.com/StockNet/bonds.aspx?Symbol=VZ&Country=USA

These two telecom companies are similar in many respects.  They should be compared.  Their bonds might be the deciding factor when deciding on which common stock to add to your high dividend stock portfolio.  Note: I haven’t scrutinized their bonds yet.  I’m just providing and examples with lots of bond info.

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http://www.myhighdividendstocks.com/category/tip-of-the-week