• Twitter
Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors

Feature Article

Essential Services and Inflation: Danger and Opportunity

By Roger S. Conrad on May. 8, 2022

The yield for 10-year Treasury bonds is now over 3.1 percent, more than double where it began 2022. And the US Federal Reserve has decisively moved to tighten monetary policy with a 50 basis point increase to its key Fed Funds rate. Yet the Dow Jones Utility Average is still very much in the black year to date. Those facts alone should disabuse anyone of the notion there’s any hard and fast relationship between changes in benchmark interest rates and investment returns for utilities and other dividend paying stocks. Rather, the difference maker when it comes to earnings and share performance is the same as it ever was: The health and growth of underlying businesses. Essential services companies do tend to be big borrowers when they finance infrastructure. So borrowing rates can have a major impact on business performance, which I highlighted in last month’s feature article.

Conrad's Utility Investor

Invest Smarter! Join Conrad’s Utility Investor!

What sets renowned income-investing expert Roger Conrad apart from the pretenders? His more than two decades of covering utility stocks and essential services—a wealth of knowledge and experience that you can’t find anywhere else.   

Smart investing. Taking advantage of real opportunities and not fads (and knowing the difference). Finding the companies and stocks that will deliver for the long haul, so investing lets you live instead of investing turning into your life. Roger Conrad has dedicated his career to these principles—and that’s what Conrad's Utility Investor delivers.

Subscribe today for instant access to a treasure trove of investment insight and knowledge, as well as Roger’s exclusive model Portfolios and ratings of more than 200 essential services.

MODEL PORTFOLIOS & RATINGS

ABOUT ROGER CONRAD

Roger S. Conrad needs no introduction to individual and professional investors, many of whom have profited from his decades of experience uncovering the best dividend-paying stocks for accumulating sustainable wealth. Roger b