Utility Roundup

America's two biggest telecoms reported second quarter earnings last week. We look at how they performed in the face of challenges from the competition.

On July 14-15, the US Energy Information Administration held its annual conference in Washington, D.C. Speakers ranged from government analysts and statisticians, politicians and regulators to high-level industry consultants and luminaries like author Daniel Yergin. My colleague Elliott Gue and I attended to uncover investment opportunities obscured by faulty conventional wisdom. Here's our take.

Three US electric utilities are now investing in LNG exports through new acquisitions. However one of these is uniquely positioned to bring new LNG export capacity on line and open North American gas to the world.

Five more Conrad’s Utility Investor portfolio stocks have hit new 52-week highs since the last Utility Roundup and 17 of the 30 companies in my Aggressive Income and Conservative Income Portfolios have hit 52-week highs this month.

It’s hard to believe that the conventional wisdom at the start of the year was that utilities were in a death spiral—and that rising interest rates and lost sales to solar would ensure they were among 2014’s worst performers. But a dozen Conrad’s Utility Investor Portfolio stocks have hit new 52-week highs this month. And most of the other holdings are no more than a couple of good trading days from following suit.

A growing, capital-intensive business must regularly be fed with sales of debt and equity. Investors almost invariably fear such offerings as either dilutive or incurring more debt. But the lowest corporate borrowing rates in a generation have enabled companies to cut interest expenses with new debt offerings, eliminating their near-term exposure to rising rates. This week, we look at six Conrad's Utility Investor Portfolio holdings that have had recent offerings.

Exelon Corp (NYSE: EXC) continues to reward shareholders, topping the Dow Jones Utilities Average (DJUA). We also look at four other DJUA stocks from our Model Portfolios.

Here's my take on what the CUI Portfolio and Utility Report Card MLPs had to say at the National Association of Publicly Traded Partnerships' MLP Investor Conference last week.

Our Conrad's Utility Investor recommendations are beating the market to date, with our Aggressive Income Portfolio recommendations up an average of 21.6 percent, Conservative Income Portfolio holdings ahead 11.9 percent and Top 10 DRIPs Portfolio up 13.9 percent.

Ten more companies have reported first-quarter earnings. Here's the rundown.