How Vodaphone’s Dividend Got Disconnected

Utilities and dividends used to be one and the same.
Not so much anymore.
Click here to find out how to lock in the payouts with less risk.
I may only be 38, but I remember the days when there were still rotary phones out there and cell phones were easily the size of footballs and weighed about as much as a couple of bowling balls.
One of my “chores” as a kid was lugging my Mom’s cellphone around for her, and I would say that was an allowance well earned.
Back then, a cellphone was a status symbol.
These days, they’re just a fact of life.
You’d think everyone is married to their phone.
It doesn’t matter if you’re at dinner, at a wedding or in the theater, somebody is going to whip out their phone (I was a groomsman in a wedding not too long ago, and one of the other groomsmen pulled out his phone mid-service to see who texted).
True, it may be a breach of etiquette, but it seems like having your phone in your hand is the new norm.
If you don’t need your phone surgically removed from your hand, you’re one of the few who  remembers your manners.
That’s why it’s hard to believe a phone company – especially a multinational European phone company – could run into trouble these days.
But Vodafone (NASDAQ: VOD) did.
Europe’s largest telecom carrier had to slash its dividend by 40% because it just wasn’t making enough cash to cover it. It was the company’s first dividend payment cut since it started paying one in 1990.
After a bad acquisition, surging spectrum costs and growing competition, it just couldn’t cover its quarterly dividend payments.
And that flies in the face of conventional wisdom when it comes to dividend stocks.
The whole point of paying a dividend is that you’re in a stable, cash-generating business that can cover the cost of your payouts.
That’s not always true, though.
That’s part of why Stephen Mauzy went looking for Liberty Checks.
Dividend payments aren’t set in stone and they can rise and fall.
So instead of just depending on dividends, he decided he’d find a more dependable sort of income.
And it is dependable.
About every 20 days (on average), you could be receiving a check for $1,270.
Instead of relying on a (seemingly) safe company like Vodaphone, wouldn’t you rather have a dependable payout?
Click here to find out how to lock in your own Liberty Check payments.
Here’s to Profits,
Ben Shepherd