Recent stock market volatility has pressed some investors to seek refuge in proven safe havens among traditional income-producing stocks. The ongoing uncertainty in the markets amid renewed concerns about the sustainability of the economic recovery is likely to last for quite some time. This suggests that some low-beta utility stocks could benefit from investors’ fleeing high-risk cyclical equities. Electric utility stocks offer security and attractive dividend yields at levels of risk well below that of the broader market. For investors looking for a near-term shelter among equities, with a goal to earn some meaningful income, here are five dividend stocks in the electric utility sector yielding 5% or more. Most of these stocks have not been fashionable with guru investors for quite some time.

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Pepco (POM) is a $4.2 billion utility company supplying electricity and natural gas to customers in mid Atlantic region and

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Income investors who invest in electric and gas utilities are always looking for ways to diversify, yet still get a decent yield. What better way to branch out than to invest in water utilities? Compared to electric utilities which require the purchase of fuel to run their generators, water utilities are a simple concept. Take the water which occurs freely and pump it out to the customers. Of course, this is over-simplifying, as water companies are involved in water treatment, developing water treatment plants, storage facilities, dams, and pumping stations.

Based on the free list of water utility stocks</a

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We have held a long position in Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (BIP) since the beginning of 2011 and we have been pleased with the results of the company during this time. We believe that because of the complex nature of BIP’s infrastructure assets, investors may not necessarily have the ability to understand this company. We believe that this partly explains why only five brokerage analysts cover the stock.

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On the other hand, Brookfield’s unique, hard-to-duplicate infrastructure assets provide them the ability to generate cash flows from operations and to pay out a sizable proportion of its income to partnership unit holders (BIP is a publicly traded limited partnership and one buys “partnership units” of BIP rather than common shares). We also believe that continued political uncertainty, such as the recent electoral victory of the Socialist party in the French Presidential Race, the continued instability in Greece and

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These days, investors are treated to a sea of red by U.S. equities on an almost daily basis. Combine some weak U.S. economic data points with concerns about how hard China’s economic landing will be along with the always present doubts that the euro common currency will survive and it’s easy to see why investors have shunned risk in a big way.

While the risk off environment that has been seen since March stands in stark contrast to the ebullient, risk on days of January and February, there are places to turn. Investors just need to know where to look that. Keep in mind that 2011 was a risk off year that sent investors scurrying into three sectors: Consumer staples, health care and utilities.

That trend is once again at play. High-beta sector funds such as the Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE) and Financial Select Sector SPDR (XLF) have been

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2012 Annual Shareholder Meeting

May 17, 2012, 11:00 a.m. ET

Executives

Charles Chandler – Director, Westar Board

Mark Ruelle – CEO

Analysts

Unidentified Analyst

Presentation

Charles Chandler

Good morning. If I could ask everybody to take their seat. It’s kind of tough today to come in from outside. It’s nice out there, so it just makes you want to stay. Well, I’m Charley Chandler and I’m the Chairman of the Westar Energy board. On behalf of the directors, welcome to the 2012 annual meeting of the shareholders of Westar Energy. We appreciate both your investment and your interest by joining us here at the meeting.

With me on the stage is Mark Ruelle, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and also the only member of management who also serves as a member of the board. I’d also like to introduce the other members of the board,

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In today’s low interest rate environment, utility stocks offer investors a reasonable alternative to bonds. Utility stocks tend to be low growth, but stable equities that attract investors primarily looking for above-average dividend income. However, like all low growth vehicles, it is especially important to focus on valuation when looking at utilities as an investment option. Of the five western utility stocks covered in this article, only Hawaiian Electric (HE) appears to be valued at the high end of its historical valuation, but not excessively. Sempra Energy (SRE) is an example of a high historical valuation, but compensates potential investors based on expectations by offering faster growth than the other four. The remaining three look attractive based on earnings expectations.

Five Reasonably Valued Western Utility Stocks

The following table summarizes five western utility companies that appear to be reasonably valued, and lists them in order of dividend yield highest to

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Q1 2012 Earnings Call

May 17, 2012 3:30 AM ET

Executives

Chang-Keun Shin – VP, Treasury Department

Cecilia Oh – Senior Manager, IR

Presentation

Operator

[Foreign Language – Korean]

[Interpreted]

Good morning and good evening. First of all, thank you all for joining this conference call, and now we will begin the conference of the fiscal year 2012 first quarter earnings results by KEPCO. This conference will start with a presentation, followed by a brief Q&A session. (Operator instructions)

Now we shall commence the presentation on the fiscal year 2012 first quarter earnings results by KEPCO.

Cecilia Oh

[Foreign Language – Korean]

[Interpreted]

Good afternoon. This is the Cecilia Oh, senior manager of KEPCO’s IR team. On behalf of KEPCO, I would like to thank you all for participating in today’s conference call.

[Foreign Language – Korean]

[Interpreted] I will begin with a brief presentation

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Do you consider yourself a value investor, always looking for underestimated and potentially undervalued names? For ideas on how to start your own value search, we ran a screen.

We began by screening the utilities sector for stocks with strong upward momentum, trading above their 20-day, 50-day, and 200-day moving averages.

We then screened for those that also appear undervalued relative to the Graham Number. The Graham Number is a measure of maximum fair value created by the “godfather of value investing” Benjamin Graham.

It is based off of a stock’s EPS and book value per share (BVPS).

Graham Number = SQRT(22.5 x TTM EPS x MRQ BVPS)

The equation assumes that P/E should not be higher than 15 and P/BV should not be higher than 1.5. Stocks trading well below their Graham Number may be undervalued.

Interactive Chart: Press Play to compare changes in analyst ratings over the last

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Annual Shareholder Meeting Conference Call

May 16, 2012 12:00 pm ET

Executives

Benjamin G.S. Fowke III – Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Cathy James Hart – Corporate Secretary and Vice President

C. Riley Hill – President, Chief Executive Officer, Director-SPS

Analysts

Paul Harpole – Mayor, Amarillo

Carla J. Sonntag – New Mexico Utility Shareholders Alliance

Beth Duke – Center City-Amarillo, Inc.

Presentation

Benjamin G.S. Fowke III

Good morning and welcome to the 2012 Xcel Energy Shareholder’s Annual Meeting. I’m Ben Fowke and I’d like to start off by saying, it’s great to be in Texas. It really is, this is my first meeting as Chairman, President and CEO, and one of my goals in my new role has been to get out and visit places and meet people that we typically don’t get to see. So again, it’s great to be in Texas. As you

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As many of my readers and followers have learned, I am a big fan of preferred stocks and the ability of preferred stocks to accomplish income/return goals of investors.

As I have learned, many of my readers and followers are not fans of preferred stocks which trade at premiums to par – as the yield to call can be less (sometimes significantly less) than the current yield of the preferred stock. I have also learned that many investors like utilities due to their (mostly) stable nature and cash generating – and paying – ability.

I think I have a win-win solution: A utility preferred that trades at/near par. Enter Southern California Edison (EIX) Series F preferred stock.

Here are the details:

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