I selected the The Top 10 Global Electric Utilities from the “Platts Top 250 Global Energy Company Rankings” for 2009. Generally, electric utility stocks offer solid dividend yields and have slow growth. Investors love them because of their yields and their monopolistic nature in most markets. Though highly regulated, electricity companies make decent profits year over year.

The Top 10 Global Electric Companies are listed below:

(CNP) CenterPoint Energy & FPL Group Ink Pipeline Deal

There is a scene in the movie “Animal House” (which completely rips off Dr. Suess’ “Horton Hears a Who” in one fell swoop but that’s a story for a different day) where a small group is at Professor Riegert’s house and after the room fills with a certain scent the discussion gets a bit heady and the concept that our entire universe could be on the head of a pin in another, larger, universe is proposed. Grand stuff for sure but in the good professor’s case merely an attempt to raise Pinto’s awareness of a world outside of his own “Private Idaho”.

So with the perspective one probably only gets while riding in the space shuttle, and I am right here on earth I can assure you, I would present to you this morning a cure for world hunger and it all starts, if can imagine it, with pancakes.

It's time to give thanks for dividends. Next week is Thanksgiving week, and surprisingly there are a lot of stocks going ex dividend during those days. There is a stock trading technique called 'Buying Dividends', which is becoming more and more popular. This is the process of buying stocks before the ex dividend date and selling the stock shortly after the ex date at about the same price, yet still being entitled to the dividend. This technique generally works only in bull markets.

When you buy dividends, there are many stocks in many different sectors to choose from. In order to be entitled to the dividend, you have to buy the stock before the ex-dividend date, and you can't sell the stock until after the ex date. The actual dividend may not be paid for another few weeks. WallStreetNewsNetwork has compiled a free downloadable and sortable Excel list of the stocks going ex dividend during the next week or two. WSNN.com came up with many companies all with market caps over $500 million. Here are a couple examples showing the stock symbol, the ex-dividend date, the market capitalization, and the yield.