It's not just Buffett buying utilities

From an article by John Reese in Forbes:

When the global equity markets plunged last fall, just about everything was dragged down with them. In the U.S., even the best-performing sectors still lost close to 20% of their value, and almost every industry was in the red.

As the market has roared back this year, however, the rising tide hasn't lifted all ships. While some sectors are up close to 50% in 2009 and several others are up in the 20% to 30% range, a few are nowhere near those figures, according to Morningstar.

One of the laggards: the utilities sector, both in the U.S. and globally. The Dow Jones Utility Average is down about 5% this year, while the MSCI World Utility Index is down about 10%. That's been bad news for utility stockholders, but good news for value investors looking for bargains.

Many power producers are paying dividend yields of 5% and higher--among the highest yields from the utility group in the past two decades. Plus, these companies are selling at their lowest valuation levels in five year--and smart institutional money is starting to flow in to the sector.