Stock price when the opinion was issued
Utilities are her largest sector weight. Defensive, regulated earnings. Secular trend as we transition off fossil fuels. Long-term growth opportunities. Biggest asset is in Florida, a good jurisdiction. Stock came off due to hurricanes. Yield is 5.5%, grows at a small rate.
Bumps along the road, but the price has appreciated. Utilities are always levered, so as rates go up, there's more interest expense on the balance sheet and less profit hits the bottom line. Rates coming down have helped EMA's profit. Over time, expectation is that it will be the better choice. Yield is north of 5%.
A boring, stable utility. Pretty much discarded last year with people chasing the AI trend. Big move since January with the flight to safety. Outlook was upgraded from Negative to Stable. Good job reducing leverage. Florida just approved storm reparation costs from 2 hurricanes in 2024.
Near term, lots of $$ coming into utilities partly because of rate cuts. That's fine. Saw generational low interest rates in 2020, and we're going to see rates ratchet slowly higher for next 15-20 years. So inflation and rates are going to be stickier, making bond proxies harder longer term.
So you need to make sure you have dividend growth. Lean toward dividend growth, rather than high dividend but low growth. He'd prefer CPX, a smaller company with better record of dividend growth, technically a lot better.