The Best Stock for the Market Sell-Off

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
The Best Stock for the Market Sell-Off

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Market crashes lead to a list of “safe haven” investments. These run from Treasury bonds to gold and low PE stocks. With some well-known companies like Amazon having stock prices down over a third, the hunt for safety has grown even more urgent. If investors could hold only one stock during the carnage, it is Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ | VZ Price Prediction).
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Verizon was once part of one of America’s oldest companies. AT&T was divided into seven regional companies in 1982. Verizon later emerged as a national phone company, known particularly for its wireless operations.
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Despite some pressure on wireless company margins, Verizon will remain one of only three large companies that offer 4G and 5G services. The others are AT&T and T-Mobile. Verizon has about 32% of the market, compared to AT&T’s 40% and T-Mobile’s 24%. They have created, among themselves, one of the best business walled gardens in American business. Setting up another wireless network would cost tens of billions of dollars.

Verizon’s stock has dropped to $37 a share, which is near its 52-week low. Wall Street did not like its earnings momentum. However, its wireless revenue rose 10% last quarter to $18.8 billion. Verizon is also one of America’s largest companies, with annual revenue of $136 billion across all its divisions.
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The engine of Verizon’s growth over the next several years is the movement of American wireless consumers from 4G to ultra-fast 5G networks. Verizon has a chance to take customers from its two rivals. At the same time, it can raise prices for faster service.
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Most importantly for investors who want a safe return, Verizon’s dividend is 6.93%, one of the highest among all large American companies. Because of its balance sheet, even with a recession, this will not drop.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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