Utility Stocks

In Perspective

no@spam.com (Roger S. Conrad)

Recent volatility in shares of Frontier Communications (NYSE: FTR) has more to do with technical factors than the fundamental strength of the underlying business.

Going Nuclear

no@spam.com (Roger S. Conrad)

Southern Company (NYSE: SO) will use federal loan guarantees to finance two nuclear reactors on its site in Waynesboro, Georgia.

Worries Great and Small

no@spam.com (Roger S. Conrad)

The retrenchment in the bond market looks a lot more like a reaction to the threat that fear of a European contagion will set off an investor stampede.

Regulation in the Age of Obama

no@spam.com (Roger S. Conrad)

The president is responding radically to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Circumstances suggest the administration will tread more lightly when it comes to telecom and CO₂.

How's Your Leverage?

no@spam.com (Roger S. Conrad)

The businesses backing Utility Forecaster Portfolio stocks have shed a lot of debt since 2001, when Enron provided the sector its own private Lehman Brothers.

Nuclear Winter

no@spam.com (Roger S. Conrad)

What if a third of the power supply for an entire US state were suddenly shut off? Would its residents find themselves in the dark, as they do routinely in developing nations?

Earnings Season

no@spam.com (Roger S. Conrad)

Blame it on Sarbanes-Oxley and subsequent populist-inspired attempts by Washington to protect investors from Wall Street fraud: Year-end filing has become so regulation-driven that fourth-quarter earnings reporting season lasts literally the entire first quarter.

Major Merger

no@spam.com (Roger S. Conrad)

FirstEnergy Corp (NYSE: FE) and Allegheny Energy (NYSE: AYE) have announced the power industry’s biggest merger in years. The immediate winners of the $8.5 billion deal are shareholders of Allegheny, who received a premium of 32 percent to the company’s pre-announcement share price.

The Budget

no@spam.com (Roger S. Conrad)

The Obama budget would not only extend preferential tax rates for dividends and capital gains. It would basically make them permanent, firmly establishing the principle that savings and investment be rewarded, not just for buying and selling stocks, but for holding on and collection income.

The Selloff

no@spam.com (Roger S. Conrad)

The economy is still crawling back from the near-meltdown of late 2008. But there’s a long way to go, and there are plenty of challenges ahead that may prolong a full recovery.