Saturday, March 24, 2007

A balanced income portfolio

One of the best known income investing "gurus" is Roger Conrad, who edits a free ezine UTILITY AND INCOME, as well as monthly newsletters UTILITY FORECASTER and CANADIAN EDGE, which is about Canadian Royalty Trusts.

So I was interested in his answer at a recent conference about how to have a balanced income portfolio. He favored income investors being in at least 7 or 8 different sectors:

1. Royalty trusts

2. Limited partnerships

3. Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS)

4. Power and water utilities

5. Telecoms

6. Preferred stocks

7. Regional banks

8. Foreign utilities

9. Super oils (I'm assuming he meant stocks of big oil companies)

10. Selected bonds (with no details given, I'm not sure whether he includes Treasury Inflation Protected Securities

11. Convertibles in growth industries such as defense and mining.

An interesting list that I need to check out more. And he's not included some traditional high dividend payers such as companies with consumer brand names such as Altria and Coca-Cola. I have to wonder why not.

If you want to know more, check out his sites at: UTILITY FORECASTER and CANADIAN EDGE.