Thursday, February 17, 2011

Water Utility Dividend Increasers

Nothing pleases an income investor more than an increase in dividends. Fortunately, some industries are doing well enough to provide these increases. One of those industries is the water distribution business.

Aqua America (WTR) recently boosted its dividend and has provided increases every year for the last 19 years. This Pennsylvania based company has paid dividends for 65 years. It trades at 24 times forward earnings and provides a yield of 2.7%.

Water stocks provide excellent income diversification along with a portfolio of electric utilities and natural gas utilities. Water utilities provide CD beating yields yields ranging from 2% to 5% according to WallStreetNewsNetwork.com. Here are a few examples.

SJW Corp. (SJW) is a San Jose, California based water distributor which serves the Silicon Valley area and has customers in Cupertino, San Jose, Campbell, Monte Sereno, Saratoga, Los Gatos, and parts of Santa Clara County. The stock has a forward PE of 23 and pays a yield of 2.9%.

American Water Works Co., Inc. (AWK) is a New Jersey based distributor of water in 35 states and two Canadian provinces. The stock trades at 16.5 times forward earnings, with a nice 3.2% yield.

Consolidated Water Co. Ltd. (CWCO), based in the Cayman Islands distributes water in the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, Belize, the British Virgin Islands, and Bermuda. It also operates desalinization plants. The stock trades at a forward PE of 19 and yields 2.9%.

To see a free list of all the top yielding water stocks, most of which yield between 3% to 5%, which you can download, update, and sort, go to WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

Disclosure: Author did not own any of the above at the time the article was written.

By Stockerblog.com

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