Reports

Inside EEI 2020: Fresh Perspectives for 2021 and Beyond

Sweet yields can bring sour consequences. That’s a lesson I learned once again, after recommending high yielding CenturyLink Inc (NYSE: CTL) a couple of months ago.
The company was on the Endangered Dividends List for shrinking revenue. Nonetheless, hefty free cash flow and attractive broadband assets convinced me the dividend could be maintained. In fact, that’s what management asserted right up until it announced a 54 percent dividend cut on February 13.

Over four decades from the mid-1960s through the mid 2000s, US electricity demand more than quadrupled. Since the Financial Crisis of 2008, however, consumption has basically flat-lined.

Since electric utilities make their living generating and distributing electricity, it would be reasonable to assume this is bad news. The truth is the sector’s health and growth prospects have never been better.

2018 has been a good year for the stock market, interest rates and oil prices for the same reason: An already robust US economy that’s been at least temporarily turbo-charged by massive corporate tax cuts.

For most of our nation’s history, Americans have taken access to cheap, abundant water supplies for granted. In fact, most of us still do, unless you live in particularly parched areas of the US Southwest and California. As our population has grown, however, so have the stresses and strains on America’s water supplies. Even in areas of heavy rainfall, the quality of drinking water from reservoirs, aquifers, rivers and other sources is increasingly threatened by air, water and waste pollution.