Utilities

February 16, 2016 Dividends 17 Comments

Utilities With Slowing Dividend Growth

Utilities With Slowing Dividend Growth SA Contributor Schwartz offers a list of 465 companies with declining dividend growth curves lasting from one to twelve years. Of these, there are eight in the utility sector, with declining growth curves lasting between three and eight years. A declining … Continue reading at seekingalpha.com Nuclear Utility EDF Cuts […]

January 27, 2016 News No Comments

New and Future Business Models for Energy Utilities

New and Future Business Models for Energy Utilities The supply-driven business models of the past will make way for customer … of distributed renewable energy sources to combat climate change. – In addition, the recent economic crisis and improvements in energy efficiency have resulted in reduced … Continue reading at finance.yahoo.com Stocks suffer drastic drop; […]

January 14, 2016 ETF No Comments

It’s Not All Bad For Utilities ETFs

It’s Not All Bad For Utilities ETFs Leading up to the Federal Reserve raising interest rates last month, the first such move by the U.S. central bank in nearly a decade, utilities stocks and exchange-traded funds were widely seen as vulnerable to higher U.S. borrowing costs. Historical data … Continue reading at money.cnn.com Notable ETF […]

October 25, 2015 ETF One Comment

Utilities Are Still Attractive If The Fed Does This

Really, it is a simple story. Speculation increases about the Federal Reserve raising interest rates and utilities stocks and the relevant exchange-traded funds suffer. September rolls around, and the Fed eschews a rate hike, leaving bond traders to surmise that the central bank could delay higher rates as far off as mid-2016 or that the […]

Professional angels are lawyers, accountants, and doctors who want to make investments in companies that offer a service or product with which they have little experience. Their main goal of investing is to be hired by the business at the same time as consultant in their area of expertise.

Wherever you look, you will find various rating systems on mutual funds, each of which uses a different approach. All of them are designed to weed through the thousands of funds to get to the best ones. But is there really such a thing? Does a high rating really mean a fund will do better in the future? Many people seem to think so. A recent study showed that Morningstar, North America's most recognized rating system for funds, has a tremendous influence on fund sales. If Morningstar gives a five-star rating, those funds typically enjoy increased sales as a result.

Past performance is no guarantee of the future. You have probably heard this disclaimer a thousand times before, but it is really important to understand. Most rating systems have little to no predictive element in them. It's natural to think that the best performer of the past will be the best performer in the future. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Just think about it; if it were that easy, investors would just continue to buy last year's winners knowing that they will be this year's winners. And that seldom works.