One of my favorite things about writing about investments has been creating my sector-based watch lists. In addition to them being valuable resources for me when I am ready to search for new places to invest, the “Top Ten” series covering different sectors in the market has also quickly become my most viewed work on Seeking Alpha.
Thus far the selection method behind making the picks has turned out pretty well, especially with the utility sector, as my picks have consistently beaten the returns seen by XLU.
The slow and steady growth of the utility companies along with managements that are willing to provide dividend payout ratio targets makes it a bit easier to forecast than other more volatile industries. I suppose it is for that reason why I’ve done more frequent updates with my utility watch lists than I have with some of the other sectors.
The success of this series and obvious interest in it has been encouraging, and it is my hope that posting these lists will serve as a nice resource base for investors looking for new investment ideas.
My intent is to keep them updated on a quarterly basis, however there is a ton of information contained on each sheet, and that may be a difficult goal to attain. So please be aware that these are for general information purposes only, and not intended in any way as a buy recommendation for the stocks contained.
My hope is to also create spreadsheets for the materials, energy, and financial sectors in the future. For now, here is the collection of the different sector-based watch lists that have been completed to date.