Super Stocks! What the StockRanks are saying about BT and Vodafone

One approach I sometimes take when looking for investment ideas for further research is to look at the average StockRanks for each sector of the market. You can find sector stats here.
Over the years, I’ve found this can sometimes highlight interesting themes, such as cyclical shifts and macro opportunities.
Recently, I noticed that the Telecoms sector currently boasts the highest average StockRank in the UK market. Consumer Defensives were in second place:

I may return to the Consumer Defensive sector in the coming weeks. But in this piece I want to take a look at telecoms – and more specifically, the two top-ranked UK telecoms stocks:

I was a little surprised to see these firms ranking so highly. Vodafone (LON:VOD) and BT (LON:BT.A) have rightly become bywords for destroying shareholder value over the last decade. While I think the problems they have faced have often been sector-wide as much as company specific, the outcome has been poor:

Even including dividend income, total returns from BT and Vodafone are negative over the last decade –...