Telstra Group Ltd (ASX: TLS) shares have been on a wild ride this year.
With the telco giant's shares being treated like a bond proxy by many investors, which means that demand falls when rates rise, they have been bouncing around in response to interest rate expectations.
But with inflation now seemingly under control and interest rate cuts on the horizon, the Telstra share price has been on a good run.
But just how good? Well, let's take a look at what would have happened if you had invested $10,000 into the telco just under four months ago.
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$10,000 invested in Telstra shares
On 22 May, the company's shares tumbled to a 52-week low of $3.39.
This means that if you were savvy enough to have invested $10,000 into Telstra shares on that day, you would have been able to snap up 2,950 units.
So, with the Telstra share price ending yesterday's session at $4.02, these shares would now be worth $11,859. That's over $1,800 more than you started with in less than four months! Not bad!
It is also worth noting that the company's shares traded ex-dividend at the end of last month. This means that those shares are about to generate some dividend income.
Telstra declared a fully franked final dividend of 9 cents per share. This will be paid to eligible shareholders next week on 26 September.
Those 2,950 units will pull in $265.50 of income, which boosts the total return to $12,124.50. That's more than $2,100 and represents a total return of 21%+.
Is it too late to invest?
Analysts at Goldman Sachs don't believe that it is too late to snap up the company's shares.
According to a recent note, the broker has put a buy rating and $4.35 price target on its shares. This implies potential upside of 8.2% for investors over the next 12 months.
And with Goldman forecasting a dividend increase to 19 cents per share in FY 2025, a fully franked 4.7% dividend yield is expected.
Commenting on the telco giant, the broker said:
We believe the low risk earnings (and dividend) growth that Telstra is delivering across FY22-25, underpinned through its mobile business, is attractive. We also believe that Telstra has a meaningful medium term opportunity to crystallise value through commencing the process to monetize its InfraCo Fixed assets – which we estimate could be worth between A$22-33bn. Although there is some debate around the strategic benefits, we see a strong rationale for monetizing the recurring NBN payment stream, given its inflation linked, long duration cash flows could be worth $14.5bn to $17.9bn, with no loss of strategic benefit.
