Telstra Group Ltd (ASX: TLS) shares are a staple of the ASX. This ASX 200 telco is one of the most widely held shares in Australian investors' portfolios. It's not hard to see why.
Since its privatisation back in the 1990s and early 2000s, Telstra has built up a formidable reputation as one of the ASX's most reliable dividend payers. Its ongoing dominance of the Australian mobile and fixed-line markets arguably gives this company a wide economic moat, protecting its defensive earnings base from competition and less-than-favourable economic conditions.
As it stands today, Telstra shares have come off what has been one of the telco's best years in quite a while. This time last year, Telstra shares were under $4 each. Today, those same shares are trading at $4.82 at the time of writing, up 21% from a year ago. That gain stretches to an even more impressive 54.3% over the past five years.
In the middle of last year, Telstra delighted investors by hitting $5.14 a share, the highest price the telco had traded at in about eight years. However, that $5.14 share price was far from the highest this company has ever traded at. Today, let's discuss just how high Telstra has gotten in the past, and whether we might see that level again.
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What is the highest price Telstra shares have ever been?
If you thought Telstra had been as high as $6 a share before, you'd be correct. In fact, as recently as 2015, Tesltra reached as high as $6.61. But, although significant at the time, that is not the company's record price. It is not in the $7, or even $8 range either. No, Telstra's reigning all-time record high is $9.16 a share. That was reached way back in late 1999. At today's pricing, Tesltra is roughly half the size that it was back at the turn of the millennium.
That might sound unbelievable. But it's worth remembering that the Telstra of 1999 is a very different beast from the company we see today. Back then, the company's primary business was providing landline telephony services. Dial-up internet was still common, and, as a recently privatised company, Telstra faced far less competition. In fact, companies were only permitted to start competing against the former monopoly provider in the 1990s.
This was also before Telstra was forced to sell its old copper network to the NBN in the 2010s, which further eroded its monopolistic position.
Additionally, Telstra shares probably benefited enormously from the stock market boom that the markets enjoyed in the late 1990s, which was only popped by the dot-com crash a few years later. As such, we can conclude that this record high was something of a historical blip.
Perhaps Telstra will hit $9 again at some point in the future. But for now, this stock's history remains a rather unique story, showcasing the changing nature of the share market.
