Is Digital Realty Still The Best Tech Dividend? (DLR, INTC, BRK-A)

Getting a dividend of over 4% from a technology company is no simple task, even as many technology leaders have decided that higher dividends can finally start to be used to reward their shareholders.  This is where Digital Realty Trust Inc. (NYSE: DLR) comes into play.

24/7 Wall St. refers to Digital Realty as “The Landlord of the Cloud and Technology.”  For months and months this was our top dividend pick for anything tied to technology.  While it is a real estate investment trust, or a REIT, the company houses many datacenters, storage farms, and technology outfits as its key tenants.  The problem is that this upside and valuation has currently diminished to the point where our internal risk-reward metrics.  We have now removed it from our top dividends portfolio and it is not a part of the 24/7 Wall St. 2012 Model Dividend portfolio.

While this may sound like a bash, it is far from it.  The company is very well-run and the only reason we are cautious is just tied to price and valuation.  If this REIT was to come under some price pressure and go back into the mid-to-high $50 handles, we would become very interested in adding the REIT back into the model dividend portfolio.

Now that Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) has pulled back close to 10% from its recent highs and with its dividend at 3.6% or so, we are currently more interested in it even though the recent warning which were expecting probably takes away any sense of urgency.  Still, Intel was good enough and attractive enough that Warren Buffett violated his long-term stance at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) of not investing in technology for Intel.

The high dividend at Digital Realty is now a yield of about 4.3%.  At $64.10, this went above our $62.00 max-threshold and the 52-week trading range is $47.42 to $65.57 aqnd the consensus Thomson Reuters price target is $66.60.  It was trading at $55.80 when we first targeted the REIT for the model portfolio.  With less than 5% implied upside, our inclination would be to tell readers that patience may actually be a virtue here.

There is some other good news that could be an ace in the hole that could change our outlook as well.  Digital Realty may again hike its dividend.  The company has now recently gone ex-dividend (December 13) and it has now had four straight quarters of a $0.68 per share payout.

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