Can Telstra find/fund growth?

Telstra (ASX:TLS) is an iconic Australian company and one of the largest companies on the ASX. It was previously the government owned monopoly provider of telecommunications, but was privatised and floated in the 1990s through a gradual process of selling instalment receipts that ultimately took over a decade to complete.
Being such a significant company with so many retail investors, there is no shortage of commentary on its operations. Consequently this article will take a fairly narrow focus, digging deeper into the numbers without pontificating on the merits of its strategy.
Firstly, we should note that it is one of the stocks in this year’s NAPS ANZ portfolio, and indeed was carried over from the 2023 portfolio. The Telecoms sector in Australia and New Zealand is very small, with only ten stocks and of those Telstra has consistently had the highest StockRank and still does. The StockRank at the start of the year was 94 and has since declined to 91, mainly on the back of declining momentum as the share price has fallen 8% and analyst’s earnings expectations have also come down.

The Quality score of 96 is the...