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Avangrid operates two business units, Networks and Renewables. Networks operates eight regulated electric and natural gas utilities across New York, Maine, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, serving over 3 million customers. Renewables has historically focused on developing onshore wind projects but is looking to make developments in solar and offshore wind over the next five years. It operates nearly 8.6 gigawatts of renewable energy projects across the US. Spanish utility Iberdrola spun off Avangrid's predecessor, Iberdrola USA, in 2015. Iberdrola owns 81.6% of Avangrid and has proposed to acquire the remaining shares.

National Grid owns and operates the electric transmission system in England and Wales. It sold the bulk of its UK gas transmission business in fiscal 2023 to fund the acquisition of PPL's UK power distribution assets. In the Northeastern United States, it serves electricity and gas customers combined in three states. It also owns regulated transmission and electricity generation in the United States, metering services, merchant transmission lines in the UK, and the Grain (UK) liquefied natural gas facility.

Consolidated Edison serves 3 million electric customers, 1.1 million gas customers, and 1,800 steam customers throughout the New York region. ED provides a wide range of energy-related products and services through the following subsidiaries: Consolidated Edison Co. of New York (CECONY), a regulated utility providing electricity, gas and steam in New York City and Westchester County; Orange and Rockland Utilities, a utility serving customers in southeastern New York State, northern New Jersey, and northeastern Pennsylvania; Con Edison Solutions, a retail energy supply and services company; Con Edison Energy, a wholesale energy supply company; Con Edison Development, which owns and operates generating plants and participates in other infrastructure projects; and Con Ed Transmission, a FERC-regulated electric and natural gas utility. The company employs approximately 15,000 people. With the sale of Con Edison Clean Energy Businesses, Con Ed has become a pure-play regulated utility with about 94% of assets at CECONY, which also accounts for approximately 90% of total revenues. The company has little generating power except for steam production, and purchases and transports gas from as far away as Canada and the Gulf of Mexico. In 2023, gas accounted for 21% of revenues and electricity accounted for about 74%, with about half of electric revenues from businesses and municipal customers. ED is increasing investment in solar and wind generation and is targeting net-zero emissions by 2040. The current market cap is about $34.5 billion.

Stocks continue to rise with broad sector participation, and 2024 is on track to be another very good year for equity investors. Meanwhile, corporate insiders remain on the sidelines, seemingly content to observe the action without any major participation. As new all-time highs are being printed on a regular basis, we can't fault insiders for not jumping in to buy at the (latest) top, but are pleased that they have not been dumping shares in a manner that would suggest a correction is imminent. Digging into the latest weekly insider-sentiment data from Vickers Stock Research, we note eight-week sell/buy ratios that are uniformly neutral. The neutral range for the ratios runs from 2.00 to 6.00, and current eight-week numbers are 5.43 for the Total (all exchanges) ratio, 5.26 for the NYSE, and 5.74 for the Nasdaq. That said, as we detailed last week, the volume of Form 144 filings (indicating an intent to sell shares) was higher than normal in November -- and now we do indeed see some increased insider selling, especially on the NYSE. With end-of-year 'portfolio dressing' in play, we are not overly alarmed. But we will watch this carefully -- and should the trend evolve into a multi-week event, it may lead us to a more-defensive opinion. On a sector basis, insider buying was the greatest in the Energy sector over the last week, with shares valued at nearly $10 million bought -- although buying activity was still outpaced by selling in the sector by a factor of 2.44-times. Meanwhile, selling was the greatest in Information Technology over the last week, with shares valued at $276 million sold versus less than $20,000 bought. While selling outpaced buying across all sectors last week, selling was also particularly notable in Industrials, Consumer Discretionary, and Financial. This week, analysts at Vickers highlighted insider transactions of interest at Copart Inc. (NGS: CPRT) and Cencora Inc. (NYSE: COR).