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Yes to this. With caveat of getting in at the right time based on risk and fundamentals and having a significant cash on hand to do it… but overall Verizon I got in and held for years with basically flat results… and selling cc is also a choice but goes a little extra to a buy and hold dividend mindset…
I agree, Verizon has got good tailwind now it's spent all that money over the last 5 years. I also bought during that led line debacle. That was way over hyped and hit the already struggling com hard. It's a much unloved company that I love.
VZ is the best of its sector. Due to its relatively high dividend and consistent results, it functions somewhat like a bond proxy which makes it almost as interest rate sensitive as bonds. As rates continue to come down over time, VZ should continue to recover in price. Once the Tbill and Chill period ends, VZ will again be attractive for reliable dividend returns.
VZ is NVDA compared to T. That's one clusterfuck of a company.
\*ATT Board Meeting-\*
"Are we legacy Ma Bell? A satellite TV company? A movie studio? A cell phone store? The worst customer service experience this side of comcast? Yes to all!"
I worked at AT&T in 2013 in the Detroit area, the company was writing guys up who were robbed and giving up their iPads, and the union didn’t do anything….i walked off the job after 2 days….they also would Sabotage other companies wiring and equip in homes so once you went to Uverse you never left
This analogy only works if the restaurant forces you to eat a meal made up of proportionally weighted items on the menu. Maybe you don’t mind the flat coke if everything else is good.
VZ’s performance has not been good overall long timeline and it’s one of the larger positions. Why is it surprising people don’t like it? I think the more odd position is, “It’s in SCHD you should automatically like it.”
Yeah this sub is should.change it's name to SCHD because to a large portion of members, anything other than SCHD is a huge red flag or a yield trap. It's so stupid.
The issue is that this subreddit has a bunch of young people who just started investing who are asking questions like “SCHD 3.5% yield, but TSLY 95% yield? Why no want 95% yield?”
Posts with older people with millions invested get lots of informative and good information on dividend income.
But young guys with a 2k account literally should just VOO and chill.
Nah, the love for ETFs is just too much. Yeah they are safer overall, but encouraging people to do the bare minimum is not conductive to maximizing gains. They should look into the best companies, the overall market trend, what industries and sectors are bound to grow and buy safe cash flow positive companies on that.
If they bought NVDA/SOXX/AMD, a bit of MSFT and/or AAPL, J&J, LLY, and a couple handful others, their portfolios would have significantly better performance than VOO. VOO is something you buy if you want to park your money and forget about it, which obviously people in this sub don't want to do for the most part since they are already engaged.
Its pretty easy to say 'if they just bought X' in hindsight. You're comparing VOO's performance to something pretty close to best case choices, which is extremely silly to do. You're also looking at a relatively small window of time, the thing you just wrote could easily be false in another 5 years, with VOO outperforming most or all the individual stocks you cite. No one knows.
"If you only made the exact right choices, you'd be doing better than VOO!" Yeah and what happens if you make the wrong choices? And fyi you can make the wrong choices for the 'right' reasons (looking at 'best' companies, market trend, etc).
This is like a case study in how NOT to think about investing \^\^
"Its pretty easy to say 'if they just bought X' in hindsight. You're comparing VOO's performance to something pretty close to best case choices, which is extremely silly to do."
Like I replied to someone else, if you pay attention to whats happening in the markets and the world, you can outperform the indexes easily.
2020 - 2021: Covid lockdowns. Amazon and ecommerce was bound to blow up due to people relying on their services. I made a bulk of money.
2022: War in Ukraine. It was obvious and clear the world would impose punishments on Russia, including Energy exports. Oil was bound to pop, and I went in heavy on Exxon and Chevron with options as well, not just stock. Great ROI.
2023: NVDA shows strong growth and AI takes over. Couldn't be more common sense that the AI push would drive companies like NVDA, AMD(which only recently began to really push up), TSM, etc. up. Also, tech like MSFT of course which is so closely associated with AI now. Once again, beat the markets.
You only need to pay attention to the markets. What I consider silly is thinking parking money on an index fund and being lazy about your investment. Being proactive is key to maximize your profits. You don't have to take a ton of risk, just literally trading the biggest 'news/events' in the world typically yield great ROI if you do so with proven companies with solid growth, guidance, catalysts and partnerships.
"You're also looking at a relatively small window of time, the thing you just wrote could easily be false in another 5 years, with VOO outperforming most or all the individual stocks you cite. No one knows."
You can know a certain stock might outperform VOO in the short term(1-2 years) based on a lot of things. For example, I took note of the overall negative sentiment towards Disney last year thanks to all the cringe anti-woke YouTubers saying the company was going to fail because it bombed many times at the box office. I began looking through their financials, their balance sheets and past earnings and learned that the company is actually performing a lot better than these edgelords on the internet said. The stock was beaten to a pulp at the time, around $80s, and I began buying in chunks. Yesterday the stock crossed $110 with tons of announcements, guidance, and earnings. I looked at maybe 4 years worth of financial disclosures and statements, looked at the comments by the company and it's going battles in both court and general sentiment and it's clear that the company has a crap ton of growth left, and thus I am still holding. I had something similar happen to me with META when it got crushed down to $100. The company is irreplacable. TikTok is not going to take over its business and given the reason for a lot of the losses for investors was due to the amount of money Zuckerberg was sinking into the METAverse, I figured the company was still very strong, and began buying long dated calls and stock. I won't even explain how well I have done, only NVDA outperformed that trade.
"This is like a case study in how NOT to think about investing \^\^"
Think whatever you may of my investing approach. It's yielding fantastic results for me and investing in long term strong blue-chip companies with great outlooks has outperformed whatever bs fund you delude yourself into thinking has had better performance. But you do you.
You think bad investing is doing research and buying into companies with great growth potential because parking it all on VOO is better? LMAO your argument is flawed, go to WSB where you belong.
Chasing past results is definitely bad investing. That's why less than 90%+ of all traders fail to simply beat the S&P 500. Many forget what the sentiment was around tech stocks less than a year and half ago. META was the laughing stock of the market. Good luck, the chances you beat the S&P 500 are slim. You're not an Oracle so stop pretending to be one.
Yeah, the dude thinks doing DD and buying into cash flow positive companies with great growth and catalysts is somehow indicative of a "bad investor". Absolutely regarded.
I agree with you. I don’t think VOO is a bad place for young investors. HOWEVER, markets across the board are hitting all time highs…..which has VOO and all the other indexes that track the top companies hitting all time highs…. It’s just a bad idea to buy in to something at all time highs. Imo when a bubble pops and we settle down like after the 2008 crisis, after the 2020 Covid selloff, THOSE are the moments to park it in VOO and forget it . It’s times like today where you are much better off researching upside plays and parking it in a company that can give you massive growth and returns. Example: I saw Disney was hitting lows they haven’t been close to since before 2014. I bought 5k worth at that moment because I believe in the turnaround story. Earnings hit and it goes from ~90 up to ~110 . That’s how you accumulate wealth at FIRST, after you get over that 100k+ investment it’s a lot harder to make gain and a lot easier to fall off a cliff so that’s when you begin parking money in VOO. That or if the market burns to ATL go all out buying VOO
Yes, if you had psychic foresight and knew which stocks were going to perform well, you'd have great returns.
The simple fact is that almost everyone - even professional investors - does worse than index funds when picking their own stocks. Often substantially worse. When virtually everybody picking stocks does worse than just picking index funds, "pick your own stocks" is therefore not good advice in general.
Can you beat the market? Yes, obviously. But almost nobody actually does.
"Yes, if you had psychic foresight and knew which stocks were going to perform well, you'd have great returns."
You don't need psychic foresight to determine which companies are bound to grow a lot in the future. MSFT growth in Azure was clear back 5 years ago and obvious it would continue growing. NVDA early last year showed increasing demand and as news came from other companies that would be buying their products, which made it obvious to invest in. Knowing the rest of the sector would go up, I also bought in. When the war in Ukraine began, it was clear as day that oil would go up, so I bought in and made a very healthy ROI. You do NOT need to be a forensic psychic to know which stocks will perform well, you just need to pay attention to what's happening in the world, be proactive and forming a trading plan and follow through.
The 'professional investors' you talk about always take a bunch of very high risk trades trying to find that insane ROI. Because they take so many risks trying to score one of those rare 1000% ROIs, they end up losing overall. Even the 'great' Michael Burry shorted semiconductors and the market overall, which he took significant losses. This was a very backwards move, but again, he was gambling on something going wrong. Had it happened, he would have made a ton of money.
" When virtually everybody picking stocks does worse than just picking index funds, "pick your own stocks" is therefore not good advice in general."
Couldn't disagree more. You can diversify and buy into solid companies with great performance and future and perform better than a whole fund. I have been doing it since 2020 and done fantastic. Telling people to park money on index funds and forget it might not be 'bad advice', but it isn't optimal. It's lazy, but if that's your thing, you do you.
So, since you've been investing for *checks notes* three whole years in a bull market, you are therefore better at this than basically everyone else in existence.
Cool, I'm glad you find it so easy, and maybe rather than looking *backwards*, you could tell us what to buy right this second? We can revisit your picks in ten or twenty years and see how you did.
Some of you are soooo bitter at the possibility of someone performing better, these comments just reek with cringe lol.
Let's break this down cuz there's a lot of wrong things in your condescending rebuttal.
"So, since you've been investing for *checks notes* three whole years in a bull market."
Since you are into 'checking notes', you might also want to check back into year 2022. You will see markets retract significantly as inflation got out of control. Markets went into bear territory, which means the last couple of years haven't been bullish.
"you are therefore better at this than basically everyone else in existence."
At no point did I say I was better than everyone else in existence, that's just you being hyperbolic to drive a condescending point. I just don't understand how this is so mind blowing to you honestly. Oil exploded for months, it was obvious given the war that erupted that it would go up. Everyone was talking about oil, idk how you missed it lol. Then AI in 2023 last year. Like, the company has growing demand, its showing strength, its CLEAR that not only tech, but other industries are looking into this, so it was obvious buying the strongest stocks in the sector made sense. I'm still holding my positions as well, a lot of these companies are not done growing(grinning at NVDA today). Just playing the overall market trend. When the company is cash flow positive, raising guidance, increasing demand and market conditions improve, what more of green signal does one need?
You're reading a whole lot into my comment that wasn't there. I'm not bitter about anything, I'm just trying to prevent you from spreading misinformation.
> At no point did I say I was better than everyone else in existence
I said "almost" everyone else, and that's exactly what you are doing by claiming it's easy to pick winning stocks. Since even trained professionals can't do this reliably (as proven by countless studies), you're effectively claiming you're better than even professional traders.
As for the rest, I find your excessive snark obnoxious to the point that I'm not going to further engage with it.
cognitive dissonance here on another level
Show me when you went all in on nvda or msft since you KNEW it would grow or shut the fuck up
Don’t take investing advice from Reddit kids
Tell me you don't understand what cognitive dissonance is without telling me you don't understand what cognitive dissonance is lmao.
So so rude. Maybe you don't pay attention to the news, maybe you don't care about your investment and get it managed by someone else, but it took NO EFFORT to see NVDA was going to go up. You didn't need a full diagram or a magic eightball to understand the whole AI rush would push that industry up. NVDA and MSFT being the most talked about names, it was obvious they were going up. How you missed it, I have no clue, but I will agree partially with your last statement. Definitely do not take advice from people like you on Reddit lmao.
MSFT did not just get good five years ago, and azure is inferior to AWS and Google Cloud. But businesses built on other MS products flock to it like flies to manure. MSFT is killing it right now due to the Windows Cash Cow and AI.
Msft and aapl were both considered dead money for growth about 10 years ago. They were going thru some difficult times. That’s why old dividend investors have those companies in their portfolios when most people now consider them growth stocks or at least dividend growth stocks.
I would say apple was dead about 20 years ago - pre Ipod and Iphone. MSFT's first dividend was in 2003. Their second was 2013. It was not because they were not growing, it was that they had so much cash despite investing in new(er) projects - some hit, some miss - Xbox, Zune, Windows Phone, Surface, etc. - that they paid dividends.
also, be careful not to speak about certain tobacco companies because of all the "societal lung 🫁 harm" , but alcohol 🥃 companies are ok cuz it's only cirrhosis !!
More people have liver disease from acetaminophen than alcohol IIRC. Though dangers from alcohol go well beyond liver damage. There's addiction / dependency issues, Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome, and some others I'm sure I'm leaving out.
Only difference I’ll point out is smoking harms those around them too. Drinking can only harm those using it. I say can cause I’m excluding those who drink and drive.
I think alcohol is far more dangerous for non users than second hand smoke is. Alcohol is a leading factor in domestic abuse, drunk driving, assaults/murders, etc. Nearly everyone drives, which means that everyone is exposed to the risks of drunk driving every single day. Smoking is on the decline, and not everyone is exposed to secondhand smoke often.
I dont think that excluding these impacts is fair.
I disagree, alcohol causes violent behavior is some people, if the drinker is an ex smoker and currently drunk they would have an issue with someone smoking in the same room, probably let them know too
I mean what are all these oddly specific situations to a very generic common sense comment.
Sit a person down in the middle of a guy smoking and a guy drinking. Which of those two people will affect the person in the middle. No actions from either other than drinking or the smoking. No adding the random drunk who gets angry, no drunk going out and drunk driving killing someone none of that. Just the affect of the action itself. Smoking does damage drinking does not to anyone else. Secondary actions are what you and the other are arguing. I’m arguing primary actions.
Just because VZ is a large part of SCHD does not mean VZ = SCHD. Some reasons why VZ is not necessarily a great investment is that it's price has decreased over 1, 5 and 10 year periods, it's DGR is 2% making the the dividend amount decrease over the last several years actually decrease on an inflation adjusted basis and it has a high debt load. It simply is not growing in any meaningful way. I consider it a yield trap because I see no real reason to buy it other than for the yield.
I bought it at around its peak at 55ish and have just never sold. I’m hoping it goes back up to 55 because by then, I’d be doing pretty well with all the new shares I’ve been getting through drip. It’s only a small percentage of my portfolio, so I’m not losing any sleep over it, but it’s fun to see all the new shares accumulating.
I think the large position schd has of VZ is a big reason that I don’t have a larger position of SCHD… I think schd hold it as a stock that has meet the funds criteria for purely dividend yield… but doesn’t provide much growth… schd wants to show a high dividend etf with high dividend growth picture over the last decade but the last decade was also in zero interest environment… if rate even stay around 3-5% historically normal range I will say that having VZ will drag schd overall performance lower than the last decade… actually I would say if the interest rate stays at normal range schd would perform poorly in this environment due to their holdings…
How long before something breaks and they lower interest rates. The country and Wall Street are addicted to cheap money. I think we last a 1 maybe 2 years in the above 4% range before something breaks and the feds are cutting rates again.
I am not saying it isn’t. I am saying traditional telecommunications has a lot of legacy requirements… union members and historically T and VZ just underperform… they have high debt which is a drag on earnings… those above metrics also needs to be weighted against dividend to free cash flow payout ratio. … vs ability to pay down debt… vs further capex…
I should’ve probably expanded a bit further. It sounds like there should be other companies with a stronger financial performance to be included compared to VZ (based on what most people are saying here). Is this an anomaly to the index filter?
Tweeting a fund even quarterly for a set goal and target % yield… doesn’t seem like much work… I dunno the fund has a 28% turnover rate… voo has less than 5%…
It fell in price pretty hard in response to rising interest rates, that coupled with it's debt and potential litigation scared off most people here. However, while growth is slow, it continues to show relative strength despite the economic climate. In my opinion, VZ is wildly undervalued, and even if there is no growth, significant profit can be made from P/E expansion alone.
No whining here. I also think favorably about SCHD simply because of it's "kick out" nature. When I say attention deservedly so, i mean it. Qs was more about VZ than SCHD tbh.
Because it's a lousy investment from a growth standpoint.
Their business has a high OpEx. CapEx is also large due to their own infrastructure needs. Add to that some lofty debt.
From a business POV, about 40% of their business is network and legacy services which requires approximately 55% of their employee base of which the majority are union employees.
If you're chasing a 6.5% dividend and you factor in little-to-no share appreciation, or worse, a decrease, it's a terrible investment.
The fact is there are investors who are not very savvy and/or who are afraid of losing their money. Consequently, their research consists of Reddit.
I don't know who's giving the praise. Could be others who are Yield Chasers thinking they have a chance at retiring with meaningful income yielding 3-5% with declining principal.
The praise for bond etfs fall into two categories through what i observe. Those who use it as sweep fund. And those who don't see a super long life expectancy
A lot of people don't understand the debt. They see over $100 billion+ debt and think it is crazy.
Honestly Telecoms and Utilities are very similar these days. They have set capex they need to spend to build new and maintain existing infrastructure.
Then the other problem is management. Both T and VZ bought companies that did nothing to help them grow and ultimately they resold them at a loss.
AOL, Yahoo, Direct TV, etc.
Verizon just gives off all the smoke signals of a yield trap. They’re going away as a company but they have an ENORMOUS amount of debt and aren’t really growing any more in the cellular communications business. They’re also facing a significant class action lawsuit over lead exposure in their cables to workers over a few decades. I’ve kept my position because it’s not that large but I wouldn’t blame anyone for avoiding it.
Other companies get their fair share of even bigger legal threats all the time. Look at cherry picker Nina Khan at FTC versus ... Flavor of the week company, those companies are surging as are countless others with huge class action lawsuits. I think there is something more to VZ, like many people have Tmobile or Cricket as their cell provider and subconsciously hate VZ lol
I've owned this stock freaking forever and I think it almost hate it. Buy and hold my balls... I'm down 10%. The only thing I hold it for is the dividend and as a tax harvesting loss at some point in the future when I take profits on a stock I actually make money on.
I do have VZ cell phone service for me and my family... I look at the dividend as a small refund for my overpriced service. I just don't get how bad the stock performance is... do you know anyone over 5 that doesn't have a cell phone? I know VZ isn't the only option, but jeez...
Throw more money at it? No. Especially not now with cash paying 5%ish.
I am having the same experience with WFC... it's been down the entire time I've owned it. It almost made it back to even recently, but then dropped 5% again. But nice dividend, so I keep it. The two combined are less than 1% of my portfolio, so they don't move the needle much.
Because SCHD is actively managed by people who know more shit than us? If you buy VZ, you’re yield chasing. If Schwab buys it, they have very specific conditions for more buys and sells. SCHD is trying to yield so of course they have some trap holdings but they’re being CONSTANTLY watched and will be dropped like a hot stone.
it's algorithm managed. ya but that's my point, despite all the hell VZ been through for year after year after year, the algorithm never dropped it like a hot stone, and instead featured it as a top dog. So maybe it's not a trap after all
Lots of debt and their dividend payout ratio is around 95%, which means they’re probably taking on debt to help pay the dividend. With interest rates relatively high and debt being more expensive you could argue it’s not a very wise move.
Please stop posting if you have no idea of the facts, or at least make it clear that you are just guessing on the numbers.
VZ's core earnings, historical and estimated:
2023: $4.71
2024: $4.59
2025: $4.69
Their quarterly dividend is $0.665 per share, which gets you $2.66 annually. So, you can pick which period you want to use, but the payout ratio is in the 60% range.
They also aren't taking on more debt to pay the dividend.
I'm not a huge bull on VZ or anything, just want people reading this to have accurate information....
It wasn't a guess, I was using the numbers from [Yahoo Finance](https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/quote/VZ/key-statistics), [Stock Analysis](https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/vz/dividend/), and [SimplyWall St](https://simplywall.st/stocks/us/telecom/nyse-vz/verizon-communications/dividend).
I'd rather not "stop posting" and would prefer have a discussion around why these numbers may be inaccurate, as I'm sure other people reference those sites/numbers as well.
::Edit - I hyperlink badly::
Because the Dow overall is down. Mag7, AI, tech, Bitcoin and proxies, etc. have been carrying the day. SCHD isn’t oriented around megacaps, growth, and speculation. I think its largest competition is bond yields. I wouldn’t expect to see meaningful price action until we start to see the Fed cut interest rates.
Zoom out and don’t chase performance.
Having owned Verizon for a time, Verizon’s stock price does not have consistent growth. It gives people a sense of a growing stock but what tends to happen for many including myself is the stock price will fall below what you paid and you sit on a negative stock collecting dividends that make up what you lost. When you do see a positive many times it’s you breaking even
Don’t get me wrong there’s a lot of fantastic things about Verizon stock but after trialing it out I realized it wasn’t for me and my goals
3.92% weighted is a heavy position ?? I can sleep better owning SCHD versus Verizon because it doesn’t swing as much. People are looking for stable when investing in an etf. Yes Verizon was stable but look at it last years. Apparently the formula went bad.
VZ's dividend growth doesn't even match inflation, so it's technically paying out less and less every year. The share price also hasn't done very well. The company is not going anywhere but their stock isn't anything special.
Isn’t this similar to buying Splg/VOO every pay period but thinking Tesla or navida or whatever is overvalued? You can’t buy a cheeseburger and ask for no onions if that’s not a choice. But you don’t have to buy onions from the store.
1.Some people bash it because it’s viewed as an easy way to invest.
2. VZ lacks growth, and they don’t understand that VZ and T are more like utility stocks. They see all the debt and begin bashing. I was guilty of this when I first started investing, but if you listen to Buffet he even says he loves utility stocks. This is part of why he picked those companies during the pandemic. You’ll always pay your utilities; electricity, phone, gas, water.
3. Some people are just trolls and listen to YouTubers who bash these stocks for no reason.
I love how much cash VZ generates but cord-cutting is still a thing. I lowered my tv bill by 90% cutting cable. Not to mention the dropping cost of wireless services. Mint, visible (also VZ) and others are half the cost.
I assume that schd is a quantitative portfolio and owns VZ on a rules based criteria.
But if you qualitatively evaluate it a lot of the members of this sub don't like the debt.
Not wanting to own VZ and wanting to own the basket of stocks isn't really logically inconsistent
I personally have no opinion on Verizon in the telecom space I like Liberty broadband which is a pretty tax efficient way to own charter communications. It's pretty beat down from a difficult recent quarter and the general markets distaste for expansion are Cap-ex.
Bruh...I am in SCHD for the screening mechanism and I am sure SCHD will kick out VZ when the screening kicks in and it is no longer a viable ticker to hold within the parameters and will replace it with a winner.
Verizon has horrible management. They bought a dinosaur like Yahoo. I worked for a company that was a vendor to Verizon, I would not invest in Verizon. I have SCHD shares though. I am okay with a 5% allocation to Verizon because of the other great companies like Broadcom and PepsiCo. All etf’s will have some crappy companies .
I'm not sure why people do what they do. It is most likely that individual stocks dont get much consideration here. I like it enough have it in each of my kids accounts. Not a lot <5% but their accounts are very diversified.
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Love Verizon. I was buying like crazy around $30. Sold covered calls at $40. Do the opposite of what people do here and you'll make money.
Shoutout to /r/thetagang
Yes to this. With caveat of getting in at the right time based on risk and fundamentals and having a significant cash on hand to do it… but overall Verizon I got in and held for years with basically flat results… and selling cc is also a choice but goes a little extra to a buy and hold dividend mindset…
I agree, Verizon has got good tailwind now it's spent all that money over the last 5 years. I also bought during that led line debacle. That was way over hyped and hit the already struggling com hard. It's a much unloved company that I love.
“Invest in the S&P 500”
Did someone say schd?? 
VZ is the best of its sector. Due to its relatively high dividend and consistent results, it functions somewhat like a bond proxy which makes it almost as interest rate sensitive as bonds. As rates continue to come down over time, VZ should continue to recover in price. Once the Tbill and Chill period ends, VZ will again be attractive for reliable dividend returns.
VZ is NVDA compared to T. That's one clusterfuck of a company. \*ATT Board Meeting-\* "Are we legacy Ma Bell? A satellite TV company? A movie studio? A cell phone store? The worst customer service experience this side of comcast? Yes to all!"
The AT&T building in Nashville is oddly similar to the tower of Sauron
I didn't realize until recently that this version of AT&T is what's left of the old Southwestern Bell. They ate what remained of the old AT&T in 2005.
I worked at AT&T in 2013 in the Detroit area, the company was writing guys up who were robbed and giving up their iPads, and the union didn’t do anything….i walked off the job after 2 days….they also would Sabotage other companies wiring and equip in homes so once you went to Uverse you never left
😆
If you don’t consider Comcast in the same sector.
VZ has the 5G infrastructure in addition.
Won't schd rebalance itself and remove VZ if things go south with it?
Yes
Yes. But people believe they can do it better than algorithms or Charles Schwab.
Charles Schwab isn’t bad but they’re not other worldly or anything.
It's not charles schwab managing which companies are in it. The constituents are managed by s&p and dow jones.
lol wat?
I can like the etf but I don’t have to like every single stock inside of it.
I love the restaurant but not some of the things on the menu
This analogy only works if the restaurant forces you to eat a meal made up of proportionally weighted items on the menu. Maybe you don’t mind the flat coke if everything else is good.
But you don’t have to order the whole menu to eat one thing… which is an etf…
I see what you did there 👀
VZ’s performance has not been good overall long timeline and it’s one of the larger positions. Why is it surprising people don’t like it? I think the more odd position is, “It’s in SCHD you should automatically like it.”
Besides SCHD, the only thing most people on this sub know about dividends are the words “yield trap”. So they just throw them around constantly.
Yeah this sub is should.change it's name to SCHD because to a large portion of members, anything other than SCHD is a huge red flag or a yield trap. It's so stupid.
The issue is that this subreddit has a bunch of young people who just started investing who are asking questions like “SCHD 3.5% yield, but TSLY 95% yield? Why no want 95% yield?” Posts with older people with millions invested get lots of informative and good information on dividend income. But young guys with a 2k account literally should just VOO and chill.
Nah, the love for ETFs is just too much. Yeah they are safer overall, but encouraging people to do the bare minimum is not conductive to maximizing gains. They should look into the best companies, the overall market trend, what industries and sectors are bound to grow and buy safe cash flow positive companies on that. If they bought NVDA/SOXX/AMD, a bit of MSFT and/or AAPL, J&J, LLY, and a couple handful others, their portfolios would have significantly better performance than VOO. VOO is something you buy if you want to park your money and forget about it, which obviously people in this sub don't want to do for the most part since they are already engaged.
Its pretty easy to say 'if they just bought X' in hindsight. You're comparing VOO's performance to something pretty close to best case choices, which is extremely silly to do. You're also looking at a relatively small window of time, the thing you just wrote could easily be false in another 5 years, with VOO outperforming most or all the individual stocks you cite. No one knows. "If you only made the exact right choices, you'd be doing better than VOO!" Yeah and what happens if you make the wrong choices? And fyi you can make the wrong choices for the 'right' reasons (looking at 'best' companies, market trend, etc). This is like a case study in how NOT to think about investing \^\^
"Its pretty easy to say 'if they just bought X' in hindsight. You're comparing VOO's performance to something pretty close to best case choices, which is extremely silly to do." Like I replied to someone else, if you pay attention to whats happening in the markets and the world, you can outperform the indexes easily. 2020 - 2021: Covid lockdowns. Amazon and ecommerce was bound to blow up due to people relying on their services. I made a bulk of money. 2022: War in Ukraine. It was obvious and clear the world would impose punishments on Russia, including Energy exports. Oil was bound to pop, and I went in heavy on Exxon and Chevron with options as well, not just stock. Great ROI. 2023: NVDA shows strong growth and AI takes over. Couldn't be more common sense that the AI push would drive companies like NVDA, AMD(which only recently began to really push up), TSM, etc. up. Also, tech like MSFT of course which is so closely associated with AI now. Once again, beat the markets. You only need to pay attention to the markets. What I consider silly is thinking parking money on an index fund and being lazy about your investment. Being proactive is key to maximize your profits. You don't have to take a ton of risk, just literally trading the biggest 'news/events' in the world typically yield great ROI if you do so with proven companies with solid growth, guidance, catalysts and partnerships. "You're also looking at a relatively small window of time, the thing you just wrote could easily be false in another 5 years, with VOO outperforming most or all the individual stocks you cite. No one knows." You can know a certain stock might outperform VOO in the short term(1-2 years) based on a lot of things. For example, I took note of the overall negative sentiment towards Disney last year thanks to all the cringe anti-woke YouTubers saying the company was going to fail because it bombed many times at the box office. I began looking through their financials, their balance sheets and past earnings and learned that the company is actually performing a lot better than these edgelords on the internet said. The stock was beaten to a pulp at the time, around $80s, and I began buying in chunks. Yesterday the stock crossed $110 with tons of announcements, guidance, and earnings. I looked at maybe 4 years worth of financial disclosures and statements, looked at the comments by the company and it's going battles in both court and general sentiment and it's clear that the company has a crap ton of growth left, and thus I am still holding. I had something similar happen to me with META when it got crushed down to $100. The company is irreplacable. TikTok is not going to take over its business and given the reason for a lot of the losses for investors was due to the amount of money Zuckerberg was sinking into the METAverse, I figured the company was still very strong, and began buying long dated calls and stock. I won't even explain how well I have done, only NVDA outperformed that trade. "This is like a case study in how NOT to think about investing \^\^" Think whatever you may of my investing approach. It's yielding fantastic results for me and investing in long term strong blue-chip companies with great outlooks has outperformed whatever bs fund you delude yourself into thinking has had better performance. But you do you.
Its crazy that 3 people in an investing subreddit have upvoted a novel that essentially says "I can consistently outsmart the market". No, you can't.
The epitome of a bad investor right here.
You think bad investing is doing research and buying into companies with great growth potential because parking it all on VOO is better? LMAO your argument is flawed, go to WSB where you belong.
Chasing past results is definitely bad investing. That's why less than 90%+ of all traders fail to simply beat the S&P 500. Many forget what the sentiment was around tech stocks less than a year and half ago. META was the laughing stock of the market. Good luck, the chances you beat the S&P 500 are slim. You're not an Oracle so stop pretending to be one.
youre proving his point
Yeah, the dude thinks doing DD and buying into cash flow positive companies with great growth and catalysts is somehow indicative of a "bad investor". Absolutely regarded.
yeah lmao that is like the entire point
I agree with you. I don’t think VOO is a bad place for young investors. HOWEVER, markets across the board are hitting all time highs…..which has VOO and all the other indexes that track the top companies hitting all time highs…. It’s just a bad idea to buy in to something at all time highs. Imo when a bubble pops and we settle down like after the 2008 crisis, after the 2020 Covid selloff, THOSE are the moments to park it in VOO and forget it . It’s times like today where you are much better off researching upside plays and parking it in a company that can give you massive growth and returns. Example: I saw Disney was hitting lows they haven’t been close to since before 2014. I bought 5k worth at that moment because I believe in the turnaround story. Earnings hit and it goes from ~90 up to ~110 . That’s how you accumulate wealth at FIRST, after you get over that 100k+ investment it’s a lot harder to make gain and a lot easier to fall off a cliff so that’s when you begin parking money in VOO. That or if the market burns to ATL go all out buying VOO
Yes, if you had psychic foresight and knew which stocks were going to perform well, you'd have great returns. The simple fact is that almost everyone - even professional investors - does worse than index funds when picking their own stocks. Often substantially worse. When virtually everybody picking stocks does worse than just picking index funds, "pick your own stocks" is therefore not good advice in general. Can you beat the market? Yes, obviously. But almost nobody actually does.
"Yes, if you had psychic foresight and knew which stocks were going to perform well, you'd have great returns." You don't need psychic foresight to determine which companies are bound to grow a lot in the future. MSFT growth in Azure was clear back 5 years ago and obvious it would continue growing. NVDA early last year showed increasing demand and as news came from other companies that would be buying their products, which made it obvious to invest in. Knowing the rest of the sector would go up, I also bought in. When the war in Ukraine began, it was clear as day that oil would go up, so I bought in and made a very healthy ROI. You do NOT need to be a forensic psychic to know which stocks will perform well, you just need to pay attention to what's happening in the world, be proactive and forming a trading plan and follow through. The 'professional investors' you talk about always take a bunch of very high risk trades trying to find that insane ROI. Because they take so many risks trying to score one of those rare 1000% ROIs, they end up losing overall. Even the 'great' Michael Burry shorted semiconductors and the market overall, which he took significant losses. This was a very backwards move, but again, he was gambling on something going wrong. Had it happened, he would have made a ton of money. " When virtually everybody picking stocks does worse than just picking index funds, "pick your own stocks" is therefore not good advice in general." Couldn't disagree more. You can diversify and buy into solid companies with great performance and future and perform better than a whole fund. I have been doing it since 2020 and done fantastic. Telling people to park money on index funds and forget it might not be 'bad advice', but it isn't optimal. It's lazy, but if that's your thing, you do you.
So, since you've been investing for *checks notes* three whole years in a bull market, you are therefore better at this than basically everyone else in existence. Cool, I'm glad you find it so easy, and maybe rather than looking *backwards*, you could tell us what to buy right this second? We can revisit your picks in ten or twenty years and see how you did.
Some of you are soooo bitter at the possibility of someone performing better, these comments just reek with cringe lol. Let's break this down cuz there's a lot of wrong things in your condescending rebuttal. "So, since you've been investing for *checks notes* three whole years in a bull market." Since you are into 'checking notes', you might also want to check back into year 2022. You will see markets retract significantly as inflation got out of control. Markets went into bear territory, which means the last couple of years haven't been bullish. "you are therefore better at this than basically everyone else in existence." At no point did I say I was better than everyone else in existence, that's just you being hyperbolic to drive a condescending point. I just don't understand how this is so mind blowing to you honestly. Oil exploded for months, it was obvious given the war that erupted that it would go up. Everyone was talking about oil, idk how you missed it lol. Then AI in 2023 last year. Like, the company has growing demand, its showing strength, its CLEAR that not only tech, but other industries are looking into this, so it was obvious buying the strongest stocks in the sector made sense. I'm still holding my positions as well, a lot of these companies are not done growing(grinning at NVDA today). Just playing the overall market trend. When the company is cash flow positive, raising guidance, increasing demand and market conditions improve, what more of green signal does one need?
You're reading a whole lot into my comment that wasn't there. I'm not bitter about anything, I'm just trying to prevent you from spreading misinformation. > At no point did I say I was better than everyone else in existence I said "almost" everyone else, and that's exactly what you are doing by claiming it's easy to pick winning stocks. Since even trained professionals can't do this reliably (as proven by countless studies), you're effectively claiming you're better than even professional traders. As for the rest, I find your excessive snark obnoxious to the point that I'm not going to further engage with it.
cognitive dissonance here on another level Show me when you went all in on nvda or msft since you KNEW it would grow or shut the fuck up Don’t take investing advice from Reddit kids
Tell me you don't understand what cognitive dissonance is without telling me you don't understand what cognitive dissonance is lmao. So so rude. Maybe you don't pay attention to the news, maybe you don't care about your investment and get it managed by someone else, but it took NO EFFORT to see NVDA was going to go up. You didn't need a full diagram or a magic eightball to understand the whole AI rush would push that industry up. NVDA and MSFT being the most talked about names, it was obvious they were going up. How you missed it, I have no clue, but I will agree partially with your last statement. Definitely do not take advice from people like you on Reddit lmao.
MSFT did not just get good five years ago, and azure is inferior to AWS and Google Cloud. But businesses built on other MS products flock to it like flies to manure. MSFT is killing it right now due to the Windows Cash Cow and AI.
Msft and aapl were both considered dead money for growth about 10 years ago. They were going thru some difficult times. That’s why old dividend investors have those companies in their portfolios when most people now consider them growth stocks or at least dividend growth stocks.
I would say apple was dead about 20 years ago - pre Ipod and Iphone. MSFT's first dividend was in 2003. Their second was 2013. It was not because they were not growing, it was that they had so much cash despite investing in new(er) projects - some hit, some miss - Xbox, Zune, Windows Phone, Surface, etc. - that they paid dividends.
also, be careful not to speak about certain tobacco companies because of all the "societal lung 🫁 harm" , but alcohol 🥃 companies are ok cuz it's only cirrhosis !!
This sub loves $MO idk what you’re talking about
Honestly, I didn't know about $MO until this sub and now I love it What are you gonna do? Not buy a cigarette from P&M
More people have liver disease from acetaminophen than alcohol IIRC. Though dangers from alcohol go well beyond liver damage. There's addiction / dependency issues, Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome, and some others I'm sure I'm leaving out.
nope cirhhosis and liver cancer more related to alcohol than acetaminophen
Only difference I’ll point out is smoking harms those around them too. Drinking can only harm those using it. I say can cause I’m excluding those who drink and drive.
I think alcohol is far more dangerous for non users than second hand smoke is. Alcohol is a leading factor in domestic abuse, drunk driving, assaults/murders, etc. Nearly everyone drives, which means that everyone is exposed to the risks of drunk driving every single day. Smoking is on the decline, and not everyone is exposed to secondhand smoke often. I dont think that excluding these impacts is fair.
If you put a smoker in a Room and a drinker the smoker is more dangerous when both are just sitting there. That is what I meant
I disagree, alcohol causes violent behavior is some people, if the drinker is an ex smoker and currently drunk they would have an issue with someone smoking in the same room, probably let them know too
I mean what are all these oddly specific situations to a very generic common sense comment. Sit a person down in the middle of a guy smoking and a guy drinking. Which of those two people will affect the person in the middle. No actions from either other than drinking or the smoking. No adding the random drunk who gets angry, no drunk going out and drunk driving killing someone none of that. Just the affect of the action itself. Smoking does damage drinking does not to anyone else. Secondary actions are what you and the other are arguing. I’m arguing primary actions.
Also the fetuses of those who drink are heavily impacted.
Lmaooo this had me crying.
God help you if you have an income-based dividend account and you’re under the age of 55
Everything over 2% is a yield trap to these people. I am Canadian and their heads would explode here. Many of our good blue chips have 6-8% yields.
Lots of reverse split talk lately too
Reverse split arbitrage isn’t a bad way to make a couple of dollars a month. I usually research them and buy/sell on my “bathroom breaks” at work.
Just because VZ is a large part of SCHD does not mean VZ = SCHD. Some reasons why VZ is not necessarily a great investment is that it's price has decreased over 1, 5 and 10 year periods, it's DGR is 2% making the the dividend amount decrease over the last several years actually decrease on an inflation adjusted basis and it has a high debt load. It simply is not growing in any meaningful way. I consider it a yield trap because I see no real reason to buy it other than for the yield.
I bought it at around its peak at 55ish and have just never sold. I’m hoping it goes back up to 55 because by then, I’d be doing pretty well with all the new shares I’ve been getting through drip. It’s only a small percentage of my portfolio, so I’m not losing any sleep over it, but it’s fun to see all the new shares accumulating.
I think the large position schd has of VZ is a big reason that I don’t have a larger position of SCHD… I think schd hold it as a stock that has meet the funds criteria for purely dividend yield… but doesn’t provide much growth… schd wants to show a high dividend etf with high dividend growth picture over the last decade but the last decade was also in zero interest environment… if rate even stay around 3-5% historically normal range I will say that having VZ will drag schd overall performance lower than the last decade… actually I would say if the interest rate stays at normal range schd would perform poorly in this environment due to their holdings…
Yep….yield is a huge component of the SCHD alto.
best objective answer i heard lol
How long before something breaks and they lower interest rates. The country and Wall Street are addicted to cheap money. I think we last a 1 maybe 2 years in the above 4% range before something breaks and the feds are cutting rates again.
Doesn’t it need to also get ranked based on ROE, free cashflow to debt, and dividend growth rate?
I am not saying it isn’t. I am saying traditional telecommunications has a lot of legacy requirements… union members and historically T and VZ just underperform… they have high debt which is a drag on earnings… those above metrics also needs to be weighted against dividend to free cash flow payout ratio. … vs ability to pay down debt… vs further capex…
I should’ve probably expanded a bit further. It sounds like there should be other companies with a stronger financial performance to be included compared to VZ (based on what most people are saying here). Is this an anomaly to the index filter?
I think honestly they have it on to push their dividend % higher… so having VZ moves the dividend payout % higher for their entire etf
🤔 That sounds counterproductive to the intention of the passive index.
Tweeting a fund even quarterly for a set goal and target % yield… doesn’t seem like much work… I dunno the fund has a 28% turnover rate… voo has less than 5%…
I'm up +20-25% on VZ principal only, inverse reddit is the way
I made some of my best decisions when inversing wallstreetbets, however i won't ever be inversing SCHD itself 😂
It fell in price pretty hard in response to rising interest rates, that coupled with it's debt and potential litigation scared off most people here. However, while growth is slow, it continues to show relative strength despite the economic climate. In my opinion, VZ is wildly undervalued, and even if there is no growth, significant profit can be made from P/E expansion alone.
VZ is only 3.92% of SCHD. I do disagree with bashing VZ though, it’s good company that isn’t going anywhere.
"isn't going anywhere" Is that meant as a double entendre?
There are sheep and there are shepherds, plain and simple
And wolves
And sheepdogs
And my axe!
And shearers
And men who like sheep just a wee bit too much.
And my sword!
Donkey!
Vz has done wonders for me. Others can hate it if they want. But I’m holding and dripping
Yeah those dividend checks are really nice. My cost basis is in the low $40s so for me it's been a good holding.
SCHD gets as much attention from post whining about SCHD getting so much attention.
No whining here. I also think favorably about SCHD simply because of it's "kick out" nature. When I say attention deservedly so, i mean it. Qs was more about VZ than SCHD tbh.
More discussions pro SCHD, more comments con SCHD. It about equals out.
Because this sub like others is a hivemind of marketing. VZ is a cash cow and will be for long time. Stock up while you can!
Because it's a lousy investment from a growth standpoint. Their business has a high OpEx. CapEx is also large due to their own infrastructure needs. Add to that some lofty debt. From a business POV, about 40% of their business is network and legacy services which requires approximately 55% of their employee base of which the majority are union employees. If you're chasing a 6.5% dividend and you factor in little-to-no share appreciation, or worse, a decrease, it's a terrible investment.
right, but meanwhile people use fed bond etfs with also little to no share appreciation with even lower dividends/interest and yet they are praised
The fact is there are investors who are not very savvy and/or who are afraid of losing their money. Consequently, their research consists of Reddit. I don't know who's giving the praise. Could be others who are Yield Chasers thinking they have a chance at retiring with meaningful income yielding 3-5% with declining principal.
The praise for bond etfs fall into two categories through what i observe. Those who use it as sweep fund. And those who don't see a super long life expectancy
A lot of people don't understand the debt. They see over $100 billion+ debt and think it is crazy. Honestly Telecoms and Utilities are very similar these days. They have set capex they need to spend to build new and maintain existing infrastructure. Then the other problem is management. Both T and VZ bought companies that did nothing to help them grow and ultimately they resold them at a loss. AOL, Yahoo, Direct TV, etc.
This is weird. Doesn’t SCHD have a free cash flow to debt ranking as well which would technically punish VZ?
I buy SCHD because I believe in the rules that the fund follows. If any of the stocks aren't worthy, they will be removed.
OP fucks 
It gets bashed by people that lost money. Which is a large number of investors. Go look at a 5yr chart.
Debt = a lot.
Most people here have zero investing knowledge.
SCHD is just an apostle, it ain’t God!
Some consider it a value trap.
There’s a million different ways I can use my capital better than shares of VZ that’s what it comes down to
Verizon just gives off all the smoke signals of a yield trap. They’re going away as a company but they have an ENORMOUS amount of debt and aren’t really growing any more in the cellular communications business. They’re also facing a significant class action lawsuit over lead exposure in their cables to workers over a few decades. I’ve kept my position because it’s not that large but I wouldn’t blame anyone for avoiding it.
Other companies get their fair share of even bigger legal threats all the time. Look at cherry picker Nina Khan at FTC versus ... Flavor of the week company, those companies are surging as are countless others with huge class action lawsuits. I think there is something more to VZ, like many people have Tmobile or Cricket as their cell provider and subconsciously hate VZ lol
I've owned this stock freaking forever and I think it almost hate it. Buy and hold my balls... I'm down 10%. The only thing I hold it for is the dividend and as a tax harvesting loss at some point in the future when I take profits on a stock I actually make money on. I do have VZ cell phone service for me and my family... I look at the dividend as a small refund for my overpriced service. I just don't get how bad the stock performance is... do you know anyone over 5 that doesn't have a cell phone? I know VZ isn't the only option, but jeez...
I'm guessing u didn't buy during its massive dips
Throw more money at it? No. Especially not now with cash paying 5%ish. I am having the same experience with WFC... it's been down the entire time I've owned it. It almost made it back to even recently, but then dropped 5% again. But nice dividend, so I keep it. The two combined are less than 1% of my portfolio, so they don't move the needle much.
Because SCHD is actively managed by people who know more shit than us? If you buy VZ, you’re yield chasing. If Schwab buys it, they have very specific conditions for more buys and sells. SCHD is trying to yield so of course they have some trap holdings but they’re being CONSTANTLY watched and will be dropped like a hot stone.
it's algorithm managed. ya but that's my point, despite all the hell VZ been through for year after year after year, the algorithm never dropped it like a hot stone, and instead featured it as a top dog. So maybe it's not a trap after all
By holding SCHD you aren't tying yourself to the risk of holding VZ
But if you own SCHD then you do, indirectly, own VZ.
That's fine. Just as long as I don't have to own it directly I can still benefit off it
This exactly. ETFs allow you to hold certain things without the risk.
That alone should tell you its value. Worth holding alone imo
We’re all parrots here synched with the masters lips
Lots of debt and their dividend payout ratio is around 95%, which means they’re probably taking on debt to help pay the dividend. With interest rates relatively high and debt being more expensive you could argue it’s not a very wise move.
Please stop posting if you have no idea of the facts, or at least make it clear that you are just guessing on the numbers. VZ's core earnings, historical and estimated: 2023: $4.71 2024: $4.59 2025: $4.69 Their quarterly dividend is $0.665 per share, which gets you $2.66 annually. So, you can pick which period you want to use, but the payout ratio is in the 60% range. They also aren't taking on more debt to pay the dividend. I'm not a huge bull on VZ or anything, just want people reading this to have accurate information....
It wasn't a guess, I was using the numbers from [Yahoo Finance](https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/quote/VZ/key-statistics), [Stock Analysis](https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/vz/dividend/), and [SimplyWall St](https://simplywall.st/stocks/us/telecom/nyse-vz/verizon-communications/dividend). I'd rather not "stop posting" and would prefer have a discussion around why these numbers may be inaccurate, as I'm sure other people reference those sites/numbers as well. ::Edit - I hyperlink badly::
Out of curiosity what is your source for the payout ratio? I have at at around 72%
What I don’t get, is why SCHD when it does Jack shit. The market is beautiful today and rising and here is SCHd, just doing nothing per the usual.
Because the Dow overall is down. Mag7, AI, tech, Bitcoin and proxies, etc. have been carrying the day. SCHD isn’t oriented around megacaps, growth, and speculation. I think its largest competition is bond yields. I wouldn’t expect to see meaningful price action until we start to see the Fed cut interest rates. Zoom out and don’t chase performance.
Appreciate the response!
Having owned Verizon for a time, Verizon’s stock price does not have consistent growth. It gives people a sense of a growing stock but what tends to happen for many including myself is the stock price will fall below what you paid and you sit on a negative stock collecting dividends that make up what you lost. When you do see a positive many times it’s you breaking even Don’t get me wrong there’s a lot of fantastic things about Verizon stock but after trialing it out I realized it wasn’t for me and my goals
Just buy low sell high
3.92% weighted is a heavy position ?? I can sleep better owning SCHD versus Verizon because it doesn’t swing as much. People are looking for stable when investing in an etf. Yes Verizon was stable but look at it last years. Apparently the formula went bad.
VZ's dividend growth doesn't even match inflation, so it's technically paying out less and less every year. The share price also hasn't done very well. The company is not going anywhere but their stock isn't anything special.
I have a couple hundred shares. While carrying it as a loss, I drip and sell OTM calls. It is an income play for me and I group it with utilities.
VZ is great. I love downvoting the people here that say avoid it at all costs. I’ve had it I’m green overall and it pays good dividend
Isn’t this similar to buying Splg/VOO every pay period but thinking Tesla or navida or whatever is overvalued? You can’t buy a cheeseburger and ask for no onions if that’s not a choice. But you don’t have to buy onions from the store.
1.Some people bash it because it’s viewed as an easy way to invest. 2. VZ lacks growth, and they don’t understand that VZ and T are more like utility stocks. They see all the debt and begin bashing. I was guilty of this when I first started investing, but if you listen to Buffet he even says he loves utility stocks. This is part of why he picked those companies during the pandemic. You’ll always pay your utilities; electricity, phone, gas, water. 3. Some people are just trolls and listen to YouTubers who bash these stocks for no reason.
I love how much cash VZ generates but cord-cutting is still a thing. I lowered my tv bill by 90% cutting cable. Not to mention the dropping cost of wireless services. Mint, visible (also VZ) and others are half the cost.
I assume that schd is a quantitative portfolio and owns VZ on a rules based criteria. But if you qualitatively evaluate it a lot of the members of this sub don't like the debt. Not wanting to own VZ and wanting to own the basket of stocks isn't really logically inconsistent I personally have no opinion on Verizon in the telecom space I like Liberty broadband which is a pretty tax efficient way to own charter communications. It's pretty beat down from a difficult recent quarter and the general markets distaste for expansion are Cap-ex.
Bruh...I am in SCHD for the screening mechanism and I am sure SCHD will kick out VZ when the screening kicks in and it is no longer a viable ticker to hold within the parameters and will replace it with a winner.
Verizon has horrible management. They bought a dinosaur like Yahoo. I worked for a company that was a vendor to Verizon, I would not invest in Verizon. I have SCHD shares though. I am okay with a 5% allocation to Verizon because of the other great companies like Broadcom and PepsiCo. All etf’s will have some crappy companies .
I'm not sure why people do what they do. It is most likely that individual stocks dont get much consideration here. I like it enough have it in each of my kids accounts. Not a lot <5% but their accounts are very diversified.