Telstra Corporation Ltd (ASX: TLS) shares have had an interesting month. The company has just completed a major corporate restructuring which saw Telstra shares briefly change their ticker code from TLS to TLSDA. Thankfully for traditionalists, all is right with the world again now Telstra is back to the good old TLS.
But investors have historically bought Telstra shares with the expectation of consistent and high dividend income. The company has even increased its annual dividend payments this year, the first time investors have seen a shareholder pay rise in six years.
So with all of this in mind, what kind of dividend income can an investor expect today from the Telstra share price?
What is the current yield on Telstra shares?
Well, Telstra's last two dividend payments were the April interim dividend worth 8 cents per share, and the final dividend worth 8.5 cents per share that was paid out in September.
That last dividend contained the pay rise that investors craved for so long. As is typical with Telstra, both dividends came with full franking credits.
So given the Telstra share price has closed at $3.90 on Friday (down 1.02%), these two dividends give the telco a trailing dividend yield of 4.23%. That grosses up to an even more impressive 6.04% if we include the value of those full franking credits.
That means that if an investor bought $100,000 worth of Telstra today, they could expect an annual income of $4,230, plus franking, from their new shares.
As we discussed earlier this week, that dividend yield is not the highest Telstra shares have ever traded at. At one point in this telco's history, its trailing dividend yield reached as high as 10%. But it is still a pretty good return on one's capital today by ASX standards.
