Germany, High Yields, and Wind Energy

It appears that Germany is the strongest member of the European Union and is the country that seems to be the primary member keeping the EU alive. Germany contributes more money by far than any other country to the EU, approximately 21% of the total EU budget. From an income investing standpoint, according to WallStreetNewsNetwork.com, there are about ten dividend paying German stocks that trade in the United States, on the New York Stock Exchange and the Pink Sheets.

One German play is Deutsche Bank AG (DB) trades at 7 times forward earnings and pays a yield of 1.0% based on its last annual dividend. Earnings for the latest quarter ending March 31, 2011 were up 17% year over year.

BASF AG (BASFY.PK), the large chemical company, has a forward price to earnings ratio of 11 and generated an earnings increase of 141.8% for the latest quarter ending December 31. The stock yields 2.3% based on its last annual dividend.

E.ON AG is the German based holding company of the world's largest investor-owned energy service provider in the world. The stock pays a generous 5.9%, and trades at 7.5 times earnings.

Speaking of earnings, Germany announced its first commercial offshore wind farm, called the Baltic 1, which generates 50-megawatts of power from 21 Siemens turbines, enough to power approximately 50,000 households. The windfarm is operated by EnBW (EBK.DE), which unfortunately for US investors, can only be purchased on German stock exchanges.

However, there are other wind energy companies available to Americans, such as Broadwind Energy, Inc. (BWEN), a manufacturer of products for the wind energy industry, which has a forward PE ratio of 21. There is also Brookfield Asset Management (BAM) is a Canadian based asset management holding company which has a division that develops wind power throughout Canada, trades at 24 times forward earnings and yields 1.5%. MasTec, Inc. (MTZ) builds wind farms, solar farms, and underground and overhead distribution systems, and has a forward PE ratio of 14.5.

Even the high yield German utility E.ON has a wind energy division. For a free list of dividend paying German stocks, which can be downloaded and sorted, go to WallStreetnewsnetwork.com.

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

By Stockerblog.com