- Happy Birthday CNBC.com!
- Global Interest Rates
- Highest Dividend Yields of the Dow
- Stocks on Sale for the Holidays
- Quick Market Stats: Week Ending 11/28
- Holiday Shopping with Deflated Stocks
- Quick Market Stats: Week Ending 11/21
- Dell Preview: So How Bad Is It?
- Oil at $50, Heading to $45 or Lower
- Markets Since Lehman, Record Wednesday Losing Streak
![]() |
Utilities are often seen as a defensive play, with steady cash flows and solid dividends. What is impressive is the fact that this seems to be holding true even with record fossil fuel prices. Rising commodity prices increase the cost of producing electricity and regulated pricing on the transmission and distribution end make it hard (or at least slower) to pass the cost increases onto end customers. Interestingly, it is not the Nuclear leaders (a cheaper alternative to fossil) like Exelon [EXC
Loading...
()
] and Entergy [ETR
Loading...
()
] that have had the biggest gains.
Yesterday's jump was partly driven by the recent slide in crude prices. AES Corp [AES
Loading...
()
] jumped 3.3% followed by PSEG [PEG
Loading...
()
] up 2.9% and Constellation Energy [CEG
Loading...
()
] up 2.7%.
Here are the biggest gainers in the S&P Utilities Sector over the past three months:
- TECO Energy [TE
Loading...
()
] is up 30.6% and boosted its dividend in April - Nicor [GAS
Loading...
()
] is up 24.9% and has 4.5% dividend yield - CenterPoint Energy [CNP
Loading...
()
] is up 18.9% and has a 4.4% dividend yield. - AES [AES
Loading...
()
] is up 18.1% in the past 3 months - Dynegy [DYN
Loading...
()
] is up 16.6% in the past 3 months




