Relations between utilities and their regulators are generally good. There are several major issues, however, that bear watching as we approach the November election.

Fear-driven selling has left this collection of high-quality companies yielding 7, 8 and 9 percent. Here's the secret to chasing yield.

Properly deployed, managed funds can help an income investor's portfolio. The key is to understand the strategy behind the fund manager's decisions.

Investing in overseas utilities confers the same advantages of predictable cash flow. But foreign jurisdictions aren't as unsettled when it comes to regulation and taxation. Go abroad for high income and currency gains.

Safe dividends and steady growth: Electric utilities have largely been left out of the post-March 2009 market party, but the six heavyweights in the UF Portfolio are solid ways to build wealth over time. At these levels they represent great value.

America has more than 100 electric and natural gas companies, two dozen major communications providers and roughly a dozen large, investor-owned water utilities. That adds up to colossal opportunities for consolidation in coming years.

The highest yield isn’t always the best buy. In fact, reaching for a bigger dividend is an easy way to get burned.

Two-thousand nine will go down as a year when almost any investment made money--but all too many investors didn’t take advantage.

Rather than benefit from falling interest rates, utility stocks are still being shunned by the giant institutions that dominate stock market trading because of fears of a “Big W” recession in the US.

Growth in US wireless users has slowed as penetration has risen to more than 90 percent. Saturation, however, has sown the seeds of even faster growth because demand for connectivity has exploded.