Without a doubt, the last three trading days have not been for the faint of heart.  On Thursday, the market experienced one of the worst sell-offs in recent memory as the Dow tumbled nearly 1000 points at its worst before rebounding nearly 700 points in the blink of an eye.  On Friday, the market see-sawed around and ended the day with another triple digit loss.  Then Monday, the madness continued as the Dow had its best day in more than a year gaining over 400 pts on the news of a massive rescue package for European public debt.

Volatility had been much lower for the prior few weeks, and some investors may be looking for a relative safe-haven in the midst of all the activity.  That is why we turn our attention to the Utilities sector today; utilities often behave less erratically than other sectors and generally pay a decent yield which further insolates investors from a downturn.  Today’s screen looked for Utilities stocks that we have a favorable valuation on and also are loved by the Motley Fool crowd.  Out of our coverage universe of more than 8000 stocks, we identified 29 candidates for defensive minded investors.

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Among the results that we believe warrant further investigation include:

  1. Excelon Corp. (EXC)                           Beta = 0.57  Yield = 4.93%
  2. National Grid PLC (NGG)                     Beta = 0.60  Yield = 5.04%
  3. Enersis SA (ENI)                                  Beta = 0.67  Yield = 4.59%
  4. Progress Energy (PGN)                        Beta = 0.40  Yield = 6.19%
  5. UniSource Energy (UNS)                     Beta = 0.76  Yield = 4.74%
  6. Central Vermont Public Service (CV)  Beta = 0.66  Yield = 4.30%

Remember, each one of these stocks receives a favorable valuation rating from Ockham (either Undervalued or Greatly Undervalued).  These are also among the set of stocks that the CAPS crowd at Motley Fool believes will outperform the indexes.  Many of these stocks have a beta coefficient of less than one, so they are generally less volatile than the market as a whole.  So if you are among those investors that thinks the market will head lower in the near future, these stocks may fit your criteria for stock selection.  Of course investors must do their own due diligence, but this could serve as a starting point to jog ideas.