Divdend stocks purchased : PPL (UK/US hybrid utility similar to NGG), 5.4% dividend currently and supposed to grow by about 5%.
IMBBY (U.K. tobacco stock), 6.4% dividend yield. Had a weak last year. GAAP earnings are depressed by amortization expenses, but owners yield is about 9% by my estimate. As we know, tobacco customers are sticky because they are addicted.
Several utility stocks have become somewhat cheap, NGG and PPL are examples. They seem to have some headwinds from taxes too, I am guessing that regulators look at post tax earnings for regulated utility ROE targets, which means that they pre tax earnings can be reduced if their tax rate is lower. oddly, this means that their credit metrics which are based on pretax numbers of EBIT and EBITDA) will be worse, which is why some utilities need to raise some equity this year to keep everything even.
Like most dividend /yield stocks, the utilities have fallen and now trade at somewhat attractive prices. SO seems to be another utility that has fallen, but they do have issues with the Vogtle nuclear plant build and I don’t understand the implications for shareholders well. They will also raise a moderate amount of equity this year because of aforementioned reasons, which seems to pressure the stock. |
