Roger S. Conrad

Hawaiian Electric Industries (NYSE: HE) suspended its dividend last month, saving roughly $158 million if continued over the next year. That’s a key piece of the utility’s defense against a wave of lawsuits resulting from Maui’s devastating wildfire, which wiped out the town of Lahaina and killed upwards of 100 people. Management has also drawn down most of the company’s $375 million in credit lines. And it’s considering restructuring moves including spinning out its American Savings Bank unit.

Nine times since the end of World War II, the S&P Utilities Index has dropped by more than -20 percent from its previous high. The most recent occurred over the space of just one month: February 2020 to March 2020 in the wake of the pandemic panic. Over the following 30 months or so, utilities generally moved higher greatly outperforming the broader stock market for most of 2022. But since then, headwinds have generally overwhelmed tailwinds, though the S&P Utilities to date has sustained less damage than any of the periods highlighted in my table “Utilities’ Post-War Ups and Downs.”

The Inflation Reduction Act’s hundreds of billions of dollars of tax credits are the law of the land. But you wouldn’t know that from the sorry performance of renewable energy stocks. That includes Aggressive Holding Clearway Energy (NYSE: CWEN), which has lost nearly one-quarter of its value so far in 2023.

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The Dow Jones Utility Average is now underwater by nearly -7 percent including dividends so far in 2023. That’s more than 25 percentage points behind the S&P 500, which continues to be pushed higher by momentum-fueled big technology stocks.

In contrast, twice as many companies in my coverage universe (18) have so far raised their 2023 guidance following Q2 earnings as reduced it. And none have cut the longer-term growth guidance that will ultimately drive their share prices higher.

In July 2017, new Aggressive Holding Avista Corp (NYSE: AVA) accepted an all-cash takeover offer of $53 per share from Canadian utility Hydro One (TSX: H, OTC: HRNNF). Then followed basically a year and a half of futility. And the parties eventually broke off their deal in January 2019, when regulators in Idaho and Washington rejected it due to concerns about then Ontario premier Doug Ford. Avista shares overnight dropped from low-50s to the low-30s and have been attempting to fight their way back ever since. The primary hurdle: Investor concerns about regulation in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and especially Washington (60 percent of rate base), where the needs of the utility’s eastern state franchise are a world away from coastal politicians.

Rarely have shares of a high quality essential services company like Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) been treated so poorly by investors. In the July 18 Utility Roundup “Verizon and AT&T: Some Thoughts,” I highlighted two catalysts for downside this summer: Fear that Amazon.com would offer wireless service through its Prime brand and a Wall Street Journal investigative piece alleging telecoms have potential liabilities in the tens of billions of dollars from owning toxic lead-lined cable.