Large-scale M&A is nothing new to Wall Street, especially in the pharmaceutical industry. However, mega deals are often fraught with risks, so when a dividend stock announces an enormous purchase investors understandably get nervous. On January 3, 2019, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) announced it will be buying biotech giant Celgene (CELG) in a $74 billion deal ($90 billion including debt), one of the largest Pharma mergers in history. BMY's stock price plunged 10% on the news, sending a clear signal that the market isn't so happy that this dividend-paying blue-chip undertaking what could be a risky growth venture. With Bristol-Myers now sporting its highest dividend yield (near 3.5%) in more than five years, let's take a closer look at this acquisition to see [...]

Digital Realty Trust (DLR) is one of the largest publicly traded REITs in the country and supports the data center needs of more than 2,300 customers across industries such as financial services, information technology, and manufacturing. The REIT has a portfolio of 198 data centers in 12 countries and boasts the second highest global market share, behind only Equinix (EQIX) according to analysts at 451 Research. Data centers provide secure, continuously available environments for companies to store and process important electronic information such as transactions and digital communications. Data centers can also serve as hubs for internet communications in major metropolitan areas.

Founded in 1983 as SBC Communications (the company bought AT&T in 2005 and adopted the more famous moniker), AT&T (T) is a telecom and media conglomerate that, after closing on its $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner in June 2018, operates four business segments: Communications (79% of revenue, 75% of segment profits):provides wireless and wireline (phone and internet) services to consumers and businesses, as well as paid video (streaming, U-verse, DirecTV). WarnerMedia (18% of revenue, 23% of segment profits): consists of all Time Warner assets, including Turner Cable TV channels, HBO, and Warner Brothers studios. Latin America (4% of revenue, -2% of segment profits): offers mobile services and satellite TV subscriptions throughout Latin America. Xandr (1% of revenue, 3% of segment profit): AT&T's [...]

Cisco (CSCO) was founded in 1984 and has grown to become one of the most important technology companies in the world. While the business sells a wide variety of products and services to businesses of all sizes, its main offerings connect computing devices to networks or computer networks with each other. The company’s website provides an overview of switches and routers, which are Cisco’s largest product segments and part of its infrastructure platform business segment.