Investing Topics: Value Investing

Our Portfolios are a mixed bag in terms of their underlying businesses and growth drivers. But our holdings are on track for solid earnings and dividend growth over the long haul. These names don’t respond uniformly to changing business conditions or short-term market moves so diversification is key to reduce volatility.

Dividend-paying stocks aren’t bond substitutes and never will be. Any investor who has sold these equities because of rising interest rates has lost big over the past 22 years. Those who do so now are playing with the same fire and, inevitably, will be badly burned.

Exelon Corp’s (NYSE: EXC) $6.9 billion all-cash takeover offer for Pepco Holdings (NYSE: POM) has gotten a mixed reception from investors, but the deal pushes the acquirer closer to resuming dividend growth.

By and large, our favorite utilities and other essential-service providers have announced solid first-quarter results, while the market’s low expectations provides a blessing in disguise.

Rising dividends are the essential fuel for higher stock prices. And nothing is more critical for payout growth than healthy, expanding businesses.

The aftermath of a dividend cut is always an emotional time, especially for investors who own the stock in question. But if you can keep a level head and evaluate the company’s proposed turnaround effort, you can find deep-value plays poised for big returns—a rarity in a five-year-old bull market.

We run through the first quarter’s biggest winners and biggest losers, while revisiting the investment themes that should outperform in 2014.

As a long-time shareholder of Berkshire as well as many utilities, I’m encouraged. I’m skeptical of some of the names being floated as MidAmerican’s next potential targets. But the feature article highlights several companies that fit the mold of NV Energy and PacifiCorp, which Berkshire bought in March 2006 from the former ScottishPower.

MidAmerican earned $1.47 billion in 2013 as one of Berkshire’s “Powerhouse Five” non-insurance businesses. That was approximately 7.5 percent of the company’s overall profit, a share that will rise to around 10 percent in 2014, thanks to a full year of owning NV Energy.

Even after the next acquisition, electric utility assets will be less significant to Berkshire’s fortunes than insurance, or even railroads (20 percent of profits). But there are two clear takeaways from Mr. Buffett’s continuing interest in the power sector.

First, MidAmerican is likely to buy another utility this year, handing investors windfall gains. Second, there are regulated electricity assets that still meet the criteria of the world’s most successful value investor.

Every portfolio has winners and losers. The key is knowing when to let the best performers run, and cut the worst loose.

The massive loss T-Mobile USA (NSDQ: TMUS) reported this week hasn’t slowed the hyperactive tweeting of its CEO John Legere. Nor apparently has the news scared off his groupies on Wall Street, though that may have more to do with continuing takeover speculation.