Roger S. Conrad

No Dow Jones Utility Average member has seen volatility this year like AES Corp (NYSE: AES). The stock hit a 12-year peak on February 18, then fell more than 60 percent, and has since recouped two-thirds of that loss.

Electric utilities measure life of key assets in decades, rather than months or years. Success not only requires making the right call on what in invest in, but being flexible enough to shift course when circumstances change.

Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) has demonstrated both this month, shelving its Atlantic Coast Pipeline project with Dominion Energy (NYSE: D). The company’s natural gas power plants will be in business for a while, enabling retirement of 6.5 gigawatts of coal capacity since 2010. The utility plans to retire 900 megawatts more by 2025, while shortening lives of 7.7 GW in North Carolina and Indiana.

Q2 earnings reporting season is coming up fast. And while no one is projecting blockbuster gains, certain baseline expectations must be met, and preferably beaten. Regulated utilities with posted earnings guidance offer the easiest benchmarks for gauging progress. Those updating in the past month offer the best odds of avoiding nasty surprises, always key to dodging downside.

Three Utility Report Card coverage universe companies cut dividends since the June issue of CUI posted. What makes them unique is all of them rate buys, as holding in cash now is sowing the seeds for rich returns over the next 12 to 18 months.

The key for investors isn't the fate of one pipeline or another. It's how well-positioned companies are to handle a setback at an asset they own or are building. We win by focusing on the handful of companies that are best-positioned to emerge from this shakeout.

After a robust decade and a half following 1996 deregulation, large US telecom M&A had virtually evaporated. The exception: T-Mobile US’ (NSDQ: TMUS) merger with Sprint, which closed April 1, 2020.

It’s been a little more than 141 years since Thomas Edison threw the first switch on his famous light bulb. What at one time were literally thousands of electric operating companies have merged into just a few dozen of consequence. And not one deal failed to create a financially stronger utility, a record no other industry can match.

From shuttered stores and offices to surging unpaid rents, US landlords have suffered a body blow this year. And there’s more turbulence ahead, from short-term cash shortfalls to big changes in tenant preferences. But American property is hardly down for the count.

On a 7-2 vote, SCOTUS overturned the lower court ruling that had rejected U.S. Forest Service authority to allow the ACP to cross the Appalachian Trail. Their decision affirms that jurisdiction. Completing the 600-mile project to link natural gas from Appalachia to demand in the Carolinas and Virginia, however, is not a done deal.