Roger S. Conrad

We have Sold two positions in the Aggressive Income Portfolio.

ARPA-E's Energy Innovation Summit, which takes place next week, could give us early insights into President Trump's energy policies.

The outlook for interest rates and uncertainties surrounding the Trump administration’s policies likely top most investors’ list of concerns in early 2017. However, investors shouldn’t take their eye off their portfolio holdings’ underlying businesses and future growth prospects. Despite the conventional wisdom that rising interest rates are bad news for utility stocks, the Dow Jones Utility Average has gained more than 20 percent since the Federal Reserve began increasing the benchmark rate in December 2015. These returns reflect the upward drift in the broader market and delivering on guidance for earnings and dividend growth. Strong fourth-quarter results and company-specific developments—not the latest tweet from President Donald Trump—are behind NextEra Energy Partners LP’s (NYSE: NEP) strong returns in the new year. Meanwhile, the recent selloff in Dominion Resources’ (NYSE: D) stock reflects a combination of high expectations and an unexpected revision to the company’s 2017 guidance, not the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy. Nowhere in our coverage universe are hopes higher and easier to dash than in names that traders have bid up as potential takeover targets.

Access to inexpensive capital and the pursuit of scale continue to drive consolidation in the utility and telecommunication services sectors. These trends create opportunities for savvy investors.

Although interest rates and federal policies can affect the stock market and create challenges and opportunities, how companies have positioned themselves and how management teams react to changes ultimately shape investors’ returns.

Excessive leverage, diminished growth prospects and shrinking cash flow suggest that a distribution cut is inevitable for this midstream master limited partnership.

This yieldco's sponsor steps up to the plate yet again.

The market isn't giving this utility credit for reducing operating risk, shoring up its balance sheet and growing its dividend.

Dominion Resources lowered its earnings guidance for next year and called for slightly slower growth through 2020.

ONEOK announced an agreement to roll up ONEOK Partners LP in a move that will improve the organization's cost of capital.