Later this month the Telstra Corporation Ltd (ASX: TLS) share price will be on watch when it releases its highly anticipated half year results.
I believe that due to the tough trading conditions in the telco industry, there's a strong chance that the telco giant will be forced to slash its interim dividend.
It is for this reason that I believe investors would be better off avoiding Telstra's shares at the moment, despite how cheap they may look on paper.
Instead of Telstra I would be buying one of these income shares:
BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP)
I think BHP is a much more attractive blue chip income option than Telstra right now. Thanks to iron ore prices zooming higher last month and improvements in the oil price, I believe BHP is on a path to deliver yet another bumper profit result in FY 2019. Especially after management recently reaffirmed its production and cost guidance for the full year. Given the strength of the mining giant's balance sheet, I suspect a good portion of its profits will be returned to shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks. Excluding its special dividend, which has now been paid to shareholders, BHP's shares currently provide a trailing fully franked 4.6% yield.
National Storage REIT (ASX: NSR)
National Storage is a real estate investment trust with a focus on self-storage assets. It provides its self-storage solutions to over 35,000 residential and commercial customers via its 127 storage centres across Australia and New Zealand. In addition to this, it has a strong acquisition pipeline with around $100 million worth of acquisitions under active consideration. I expect this and growing demand for its services from downsizing and third party logistics providers to put the trust in a position to grow its distribution at a solid rate over the coming years. At present National Storage's units offer a trailing 5.2% yield.
