Marcie,
There are plenty of us out here! I've bought close to 400 shares of T in the last 2 months alone. If not for us long-term investors in stocks like T, IBM, INTC, MO, etc., do you really think T would have shot up 8%? Why, Michael Price of the Mutual Series funds makes it his life-work to pick depressed stocks like T whenever they pop up. Remember how he bought Chase at 12-16??
A buy and hold approach often works for prime, brand-name franchises like T, IBM, MO, and INTC (although Intel has not really suffered in the last 10+ years...), but not always. Just look at DEC (199 in 87, now 32), WANG (60s to 0), APPL (70s to 16), to name a few.
Over the long haul, it pays to buy and keep. I'm currently holding MRK, INTC, MO, KO, PG, MO, NOC, DIS, and MCD. All for at least 6 years, the longest, MRK for over 10 years. As a rule of thumb, buy big, great names whenever they yield over 2x market yields, which is now around 1.8% for the S&P 500.
Also, keep an eye out for stocks rated a consensus strong-buy by Wall Street firms, especially the top ones like Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. Two months ago, CSCO was battered down by talks of a slowdown in the networking world, but its strong-buy rating was confirmed by practically everyone. I was delighted to see the 80-85 price targets and bought in at 46-48. This has not yet worked for T fully, its price target remains at 50 at Morgan Stanley. But we're a bit closely this weekend. |
