Investing in yield could be good if you want a steady income BUT...

Investing in yield could be good if you want a steady income BUT I'm not convinced investing in stocks is the way to go. Because as TLS clearly illustates

1. The divident is not guaranteed
2. You STILL have volatility risk.

And if I'm going to have volatility risk, then capital growth is the better way to go.
When you need money, sell some shares!

Then invest the proceeds in something that does guarantee income and have low or no volatility risk.

As I illustrated in an earlier post... yield mean nothing if at the expense of capital.

"I wonder what the average purchase price is for Telstra holders?
It's all good you use the current low price and say ... look we are getting 9.08% gross yield.
That is if your purchase price is $3.46.

I can tell you my average is $3.883 and therefore my yield is lower at 8.09%.

If we take TLS price of $6.16 on 15 Sept 2000. ( pick this date because all dividends after that date is 100% franked )

We have total dividends paid of $4.96 ( $7.086 unfranked ) over 17 years.

Gives us an average non-compounding annual yield of 6.77%.
And a capital loss of $2.7 per share.

If we , for argument sake, deduct that loss from the yield.
Our new effective yield is 4.18%.

So.... you are giving TLS your capital and asking them to slowly pay it back to you and charging them 4.18% interest.... lol. Over the historical time period I wonder, maybe you would have been better off with a bank account? Only recently has cash rates become very low. But maybe a low cash rate is still better than capital loss.

Hardly stellar for a loooooooong term holder. In fact in terms of opportunity cost it is shocking...."

I'm still holding in the short term, but will try and exit unless there is a growth story on the horizon.
Not investing in stocks for yields unless there is also growth, but I'd prefer no yield and just growth.