Dear Mr. Berko: We wanted to buy 200 shares of MGE Energy, but our new stockbroker recommended that we buy 200 shares of Dominion Energy instead. Please give us your opinion. He also recommended that we invest $30,000 in U.S. government I bonds. Please give us your advice here, too.
— T.W., Oklahoma City
Dear T.W.: I like that broker. He’s among the few remaining brokers who still recommend common stocks rather than all that proprietary junk. He has good smarts and is giving you good advice. MGE Energy yields 1.94 percent and can’t hold a candle to Dominion Energy (D-$73.15), which is a classy dividend-growth utility.
D is so highly regarded that The Vanguard Group owns 41 million shares, Wellington Management owns 30.2 million and Capital World Investors owns 25 million. Meanwhile, State Street, Bank of America, Franklin Resources, BlackRock and Northern Trust together own 84 million shares. This is a supercalifragilistic electric and gas utility with 675 million shares outstanding and an expialidocious dividend record. Take your broker’s advice and buy 200 shares of D, which yields 4.12 percent.
Dominion Energy is headquartered in Richmond, Va., and has $11.5 billion in revenues. D serves 2.6 million electric customers in Virginia and North Carolina, plus it has 2.3 million gas customers in Ohio, West Virginia and Utah. Last year, Dominion paid $4.4 billion for Questar, a natural gas utility with 1.1 million Utah customers. And in April, Dominion will sell Questar’s gas pipeline for $1.7 billion to its 71 percent-owned Dominion Midstream Partners (DM-$32.85), an operation that produces gas for all of D’s natural gas customers.
