Investing Topics: Utility Stocks

Real industry trends don’t spontaneously occur. They’re forged on the ground by what companies are actually doing. And you spot them by focusing on individual companies’ results, and aggregating your findings.

It’s been barely two weeks since Washington avoided the first federal government default, at least since the Articles of Confederation were in force. The autumn rally in stocks, however, actually began during the heat of the crisis.

The trigger was long overdue recognition the Federal Reserve isn’t going to abandon loose money until the economy is strong enough to handle it. All the “taper” talk that clogged the airwaves for months proved to be meaningless blather.

That’s hardly the first time conventional wisdom has proven disastrously wrong for the investors who bet on it.

The silver lining is resulting volatility was a solid opportunity to buy good stocks cheap. And thanks to that, we’ve already seen sizeable gains for the Conrad’s Utility Investor Model Portfolios, though they’ve only been around three months.

AT&T Inc (NYSE: T) was the only Conrad’s Utility Investor Portfolio pick to report numbers last week. Takeaway one is quite positive: The results followed closely those of arch-rival and co-Big Two US communications company Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ).

Earnings season is now underway for the Conrad’s Utility Investor portfolios, with Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (NYSE: KMP) and Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) the first to report full numbers.

Don’t believe everything you hear. The odds are still heavily in favor of enough Democrats and Republicans joining forces to prevent the first bona fide US default since the government operated under the Articles of Confederation.

You had questions about utility and telecom stocks, we had answers.