The following information is from the most recent

ROIC is an important concept for capital-intensive businesses. It measure management's effectiveness in generating shareholder returns based on all the capital at its disposal, including both debt and equity. For example, Company A generates a 10% return on equity with a debt to equity ratio of 0.5. Company B generates the same 10% return on equity

In my opinion, Duke Energy (DUK), Exelon (EXC) and Pioneer Southwest Energy (PSE) appear as attractive investments for investors seeking consistent income.

Duke Energy

Duke Energy is the largest regulated utility company with its headquarters in North Carolina. The company reports its operations based on six segments, namely, Duke Energy Carolinas, Carolina Power & Light Company, Florida Power Corporation, Duke Energy Ohio, and Duke Energy Indiana and International Energy. The company gained the status of the largest utility following a merger with Progress Energy. The expected cost synergies generated from the acquisition range from around 5-7% for

It was Graham's idea of holding dividend stocks as a substitute or complement to any other stream of income. In that instance, similar to that of an apartment landlord, one cares far less about the price of the underlying asset, which can fluctuate wildly, than one does about the stream of income that the asset generates. After all, aren't we supposed to go into these stocks as a long-term venture? Why should we get bent out of shape (or especially excited) about what happens month to month, or even year to year?

It's a very intriguing concept, and if properly applied, can help steer certain types of investors towards victory.

The following figures outlines the correlations between ROIC, ROE, dividend yield and several other fundamental numbers used in evaluating stock values and 3-year total stock investment returns. Total returns include both capital gains and dividend income. In addition, the plot graph correlates specific returns on invested capital with total stock returns for the three-year period 2004 to 2006.

Source: Public Utilities Fortnightly, How to Achieve High

No later than 45 days after the end of each calendar quarter, institutional investors like hedge funds and other major investors are required to file 13F forms with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We'll look into these 13Fs and select the five largest positions in terms of value. In this piece we will take a glance at the equity portfolio of Tigershark Management, which was founded by Tom Facciola and Michael Sears. The original 13F can be seen here.

Why is this important?

We use this information because we have discovered that everyday investors can benefit from watching hedge fund sentiment. It has been discovered that those who track specific hedge fund activity can outperform the general indices by as much as 18 percentage points per year over a long-term period (discover the secrets of this strategy).

A top trio

Tigershark Management disclosed

Below the author supplemented Dow dividend dog theory picks from Yahoo sectors with one year mean target price estimates reported by yahoo from broker analysts.

Note my Arnold Utes Selections for April as follows:

Dog Metrics Pointed Out Ten Top Utilities Stocks

Ten top utilities sector stocks that showed the biggest dividend yields April 26 per Yahoo Finance data represented four industries: electric; gas; diversified; foreign. Top dog, TransAlta Corp. (TAC) was one of two diversified utilities. The other

Well, the stock has actually surged about 20% since that recommendation. It's up 25% year-to-date.

So what did we know that everyone else didn't?

A couple of things…

To begin with, our recommendation came shortly after Exelon cut its dividend by 41%. That decision was toxic for many analysts and investors, and it resulted in a 6.25% decline for the stock.

Still, it was the right decision, as it freed up $700 million for the company.

We also knew that natural gas prices were experiencing a sustainable rally. We told you natural gas prices would climb back above $4 per thousand cubic feet (MCF) - and they did.

But that's not all.

Exelon is unique among energy companies - and that's why this rally is just the beginning…

Exelon Corporation (EXC)

Q1 2013 Earnings Call

May 1, 2013 11:00 am ET

Executives

Ravi Ganti – Vice President of Investor Relations

Christopher M. Crane – President and Chief Executive Officer

Jonathan W. Thayer – Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Kenneth W. Cornew – Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer

Anne R. Pramaggiore – President and Chief Executive Officer, ComEd

Joseph Dominguez – Senior Vice President, Governmental and Regulatory Affairs & Public Policy

Analysts

Greg Gordon – ISI Group

Daniel Eggers – Credit Suisse

Jonathan Arnold – Deutsche Bank

Hugh Wynne – Sanford Bernstein

Steven Fleishman – Wolfe Research, LLC

Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS

Stephen Byrd – Morgan Stanley

Michael Lapides – Goldman Sachs

Ali Agha – SunTrust Robinson Humphrey

Travis Miller – Morningstar

Paul Patterson – Glenrock Associates

Presentation

Operator

Good morning. My name is Brit and I will be your conference operator today. At this

The challenge for a new dividend growth investor sometimes is being able to pick good dividend growth stocks. With so many in the stock universe, where does one begin? I had written an article several months back where I compared the stocks that were held in the dividend portfolios published on Seeking Alpha. My analysis identified several common stocks that are well known and others that were not (see the article here). David Van Knapp recently republished a list of 39 stocks that self-proclaimed dividend growth investors' commonly held in their portfolio (see his article here). I found that our two articles shared many of the same stocks. David's article inspired me though to look at those 39 stocks to determine which are actually increasing the percentage (or proportion) of annual dividends not just increasing the annual amount of dividends being paid out.

Dividend growth investors are

Strong 2-Year Gains

For low growth stocks, the utility sector has been on fire the last couple of years. American Electric Power (AEP), Dominion Resources (D), and Duke Energy (DUK) have had phenomenal gains of over 40% during that time period, compared to the S&P 500 at 22%.

Over the past several years, income investors have been chasing yield as long-maturing Treasury yields crumbled. Many investors ended up increasing their allocation to utility stocks as a means to replace income lost in rolling over higher duration and higher yielding bonds purchased eons ago. Prior to the current low yield environment, the "safe" play was buying a 5.0% long Treasury, however, recent income investors have to look elsewhere. Not only has the competitive yield environment favored the utility sector, the historic relative

This is the second annual survey of most widely held stocks by dividend growth investors. Interest in the survey was enthusiastic, and individual investors shared a significant amount of information.

The list has grown from 39 stocks last year to 59 this year. Four stocks from last year's list were tossed out, while 24 new stocks were added. This year's list includes REITs, MLPs, and BDCs in addition to ordinary corporations. It also includes a few stocks that are probably not "dividend growth stocks" by most definitions. That's good, as most dividend growth investors are not rigid in their investing strategies.

Based on one reader's excellent suggestion, the results below are divided by sector. I used S&P's GICS (Global Industry Classification Standard) organization system:

The largest utility in New England, Northeast Utilities (NU) operates six electric and gas utilities in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, and serves more than 3.5 million electric and gas customers

With a commitment to building on the companies' history of delivering great

There is nothing new here. The fact that investors have noticed these facts is evidenced in the recent strong performance of the shares of American utility companies. The following chart of the Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLU) illustrates this point.

(click to enlarge)

Unfortunately this strong performance has left minimal opportunities for investors. Consider

(click to enlarge)

At first glance, the price chart for utilities certainly raises some eyebrows. The sector as measured by the Utilities SPDR (XLU) hit an elbow point at the very beginning of the year and has vaulted higher at an increasing parabolic rate ever since. Following this recent surge, the XLU is now

The online investor tutorial site, Investor Glossary, recently offered this brief description of dividend dog methodology: "...[I]nvented to find the 10 stocks of the 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average with the highest yield (dividend/price) and invest equally in each, [t]he Dow dividend theory also requires that you repeat this process once a year."

Below, the Arnold S&P 500 Index top dog elections for April were disclosed.

Dog Metrics Ranked S&P 500 Stocks by Yield

McGraw Hill,

I have been posting weekly updates on the progress of two "competitions." From the Dow Jones Industrials I am pitting the "Dogs of the Dow" against a set of companies satisfying my set of criteria (the companies are called the "Pedigrees of

Exelon (EXC) has been one of the worst performing utility stocks in the U.S., giving significant losses to investors in the last decade or so. The performance has been especially bad compared with nice profits being given by most large-cap utility peers like Southern Company (SO), Dominion Resources (D) and Duke Energy (DUK). While other utility stocks have been touching all time highs, EXC has been touching all time lows. The company is heavily dependent on non-regulated electricity markets for its revenues. This has proved to be highly detrimental as power prices have crashed in the U.S. due to the shale gas revolution. While the competitors generate large profits from regulated operations, Exelon has been making much smaller profits as its earnings depend on the market price for electricity. However, I have been positive about the stock given its beaten down status, low valuation, adverse sentiment, clean