RE: Tick-Offed-nessActually, you are right, if an investor expects a dividend and does not get one (or its lower than expected) the investor gets ticked off and maybe even sells the stock.
TELUS is in the process (last 2 years)of moving from a VALUE type stock (dividend producing) to a GROWTH type stock (earnings invested in company growth) and timing could not be worse. Reducing the dividend was just one more step towards higher growth.
With significant down turns in the Tech stocks (growth stocks) investors are not nearly as eager to embrase another newcommer to the growth sector and hence are aprehensive about TELUS and are really taking a slow "show me" attitude. However, the VALUE investors (most institutional) see what TELUS is doing and are very quick to drop TELUS....Its not that they dont like TELUS, its that TELUS no longer matches their investment style.
can you see the sell pressure this scenario causes? The good news is that it wont last forever. TELUS is undervalued in relation to its peers (my opinion) and is one of the Cdn Telco's that has "got it" in seeing the future for telecommunications...the mantra "Wireless, DATA and IP"
Cheers