Roger S. Conrad

The S&P 500 now sells for roughly 21 times members’ expected next 12 months earnings. The S&P Telecom Index trades at about 19 times. But leaving out the handful of information technology companies like Alphabet Inc (NSDQ: GOOGL) added in recent years, the Index’ earnings multiple falls to just 9.4 times.

Credit whatever you want for breaking the logjam in the US Congress. But starting next year, US electricity, natural gas, telecom and water utilities will enjoy unprecedented federal government largesse to support capital spending plans, courtesy of the $1.2 billion infrastructure law passed last week with bipartisan support. The August feature article archived on the CUI website highlights my list of winners from the coming spending boom. They include well-placed developers of renewable energy and hydrogen, broadband deployers and utility construction companies.

Conrad’s Utility Investor has three model Portfolios. Our Conservative Holdings focus on best in class companies on target for consistent, reliable and robust earnings and dividend growth, with the idea that investors will harvest rather than reinvest dividends. Our Aggressive Holdings also generally assume a buy and hold approach, including harvesting dividends.

When a stock or sector trades at a meaningfully discounted valuation to market averages, there’s always a reason why. Sometimes there’s an opportunity for investors to cash in from closing that discount, if the reason proves temporary. And sometimes, the valuation gap persists or even widens, if the challenge behind it becomes more acute.