Rogers Communications (RCI.B-T)

I guess I should start things off with my decision to invest in Rogers Communications (RCI.B-T) at ~$44.50 back on May 28th while it's still relatively fresh in mind.

My portfolio had a very large weighting in mining stocks and with all the talk that the TSX (particularly mining stocks) were due for a correction, I thought it would be prudent to start diversifying my portfolio.

As you can see by the 1 year chart below for RCI.B-T, it is obviously in a nice uptrend


Besides the uptrend, I found the following things interesting about Rogers:

Cable Television & HDTV:
Almost everyone nowadays is buying HDTV-ready televisions. Digital HDTV services will bring in more revenue for Rogers.

Wireless Communications:
Not only are they a key player in the wireless telecommunications industry in Canada, they will be the exclusive provider of Apple's new iPhone in the country! Once iPhone availability is officially announced, I am hoping there will be a nice spike in investor interest in Rogers.

Home Phone:
With Rogers' introduction of home phone service, many of my friends have made the switch from Bell. Apparently, their not the only ones. That's good news for Rogers; bad news for Bell.

BCE Takeover Talks:
If and when BCE gets taken over, BCE shareholders will be looking elsewhere; some might decide that Rogers is a good place to invest.

Dividend:
Although it's small, it's money in my pocket nonetheless.


I had been keeping my eye on the stock for a couple of weeks and was hoping for a pullback to $42 but thanks to the company's announcement to raise the annual dividend to 50 Canadian cents a share from 16 cents that never happened and the share price shot up on the May 28th news.

I recalled reading somewhere that the company had a good following in the United States where it just happened to be Memorial Day and their markets were closed for the holiday so I thought, "Surely, when the U.S. markets open the next day, the share will rise even further" so I placed my order. Well, I was right. The share priced opened higher the next day but unfortunately, it then quickly starting dropping again and tested the $43 mark a few times in the days afterwards.

Friday's closing price was $46.73.