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AT&T Inc (NYSE: T) still sells for less than 8.7 times expected 2021 earnings. And PPL Corp (NYSE: PPL) yields 2.5 percentage points more than the Dow Jones Utility Average. Why the deep discounts? Because neither company’s management has come clean on how much they intend to cut dividends after completing major transactions early next year, other than to say they intend to “right size.”

Try “googling” popular investment media for “renewable energy” stocks—odds are you’ll be bombarded by references to Tesla Inc (NSDQ: TSLA), and otherwise scores of earnings-free companies you’ve never heard of.

That description fits to a “T” the vast majority of the 88 members of the WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index (NEX). The index itself is up nearly 50 percent year-to-date.

Last August, I harvested a basket of high yielding stocks from what I called “stony ground.” My point was falling interest rates had become a double-edged sword for income investors. On the one hand, returns for dividend paying stocks and fixed income securities were rising. And companies’ generation-low borrowing costs were firing up earnings as well.

In investing, it’s common for good years to follow good years, and great years often follow average or poor ones. But historically great years like what we’ve just enjoyed at Conrad’s Utility Investor rarely if ever come back to back.