AT&T Inc. (T), Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ): Billionaire David Harding’s 4% Yield and Higher Favorites

According to the 13F, the fund nearly doubled the size of its position in AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) to about 860,000 shares. AT&T is a popular income pick, with the large telecom currently paying a yield of 4.7%; defensive investors will note that the stock price has only a weak relationship to movements in broader market indices as well. At a market cap of about $210 billion, AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) trades at 14 times analyst consensus earnings for 2014. Fisher Asset Management, which is managed by billionaire Ken Fisher and his team, had 6.1 million shares in its portfolio at the beginning of January (research more stocks Fisher likes).

Winton owned a little over 630,000 shares of The Southern Company (NYSE:SO), another large utility which pays a high dividend yield (4.1% going by recent numbers) and is also well insulated from economic activity (the stock’s beta is 0.1). As a result, it too is a stock that income or defensive investors should consider, even though by traditional value standards The Southern Company (NYSE:SO) appears pricy at a trailing P/E of 18. Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller, who used to manage his own fund as well as serve as a portfolio manager for George Soros, initiated a position in Southern during Q4 (here are more stocks Druckenmiller was buying).

Disclosure: I own no shares of any stocks mentioned in this article.