The Southern Co.: Safety and decent growth are hard to ignore

Filed under: Stocks to Buy, Southern Company (SO)

Readers of this space know that one of the preferred sectors is the electric/power generation sector, which should benefit from both an expanded infrastructure and ramping demand, once U.S. economic growth resumes.

And with the above in mind, the Southern Co. is (NYSE: SO) worth a review. The Southern Co. provides power to roughly 4.3 million customers in the Southeast United States.

In general, analysts expect the economic recovery in and around Atlanta, Georgia, SO's core area, to put a bottom under earnings in FY2009. The commercial side of energy use (primarily the industrial segment), will take longer to snap-back, but a more-modest decline in the residential sector and its quicker recovery should offset that industrial sluggishness. The greater Atlanta region did not experience as large a housing bubble as the West and East, hence the bust was not as severe, from a household formation standpoint.

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The Southern Co.: Safety and decent growth are hard to ignore originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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