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Essential Utilities Inc., formerly Aqua America, Inc., operates regulated utilities that provide water, wastewater, and natural gas services in the United States, with subsidiaries serving approximately six million people in Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Illinois, Texas, New Jersey, Indiana, Kentucky, and Virginia. In addition to its water/wastewater utilities, the company purchased the Peoples natural gas distribution utility in March 2020. Headquartered in Pennsylvania, WTRG is the one of the largest regulated water utilities in the U.S. and has been in operation for over 135 years. The company has over 3,200 employees.

NiSource Inc. is an energy holding company whose subsidiaries are fully regulated natural gas and electric utility companies serving nearly 4 million natural gas customers and 500,000 electric customers in six states. NiSource's principal subsidiaries include Columbia Gas, a natural gas distribution holding company; and NIPSCO, a regulated gas and electric company. NiSource derives substantially all of its revenues and earnings from the operating results of these rate-regulated utilities. The company has approximately 7,200 employees. NI shares are a component of the S&P 500.

Alliant Energy is the parent company of two public utilities, Interstate Power & Light Co. and Wisconsin Power & Light Co., and also owns Alliant Energy Resources, the parent company of Alliant's nonregulated operations. The core utility service territories are in Iowa and Wisconsin. The company employs about 3,300 people. The shares are a component of the S&P 500.

Vickers Stock Research, a subsidiary of Argus Research Group, analyzes insider trading and institutional stock ownership. Form 13Fs, which institutions must file to report their holdings, are due 45 days after the end of calendar quarters and have come in for 2Q24. We review 13Fs of major institutional investors, including activists, to see what they are buying and to look for trends. Activist investing is now less about generating a short-term return and more about achieving long-term returns through an active management/investor partnership. The stock-market volatility during 2Q gave those institutional investors a chance to buy a dip. Taking a look at the 13Fs from well-known institutional portfolios, we see that the big guns were busy, either adding new holdings or increasing existing holdings. Buying was across a variety of sectors. Based on Vickers data, the following are select purchases made in 2Q by some high-profile money managers: Chubb (CB) and Ulta Beauty (ULTA) bought by Berkshire Hathaway; Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO) bought by Citadel; Accenture (ACN), Adobe (ADBE), and Broadcom bought by D.E. Shaw; Shopify (SHOP) and GE Aerospace (GE) bought by Artisan Partners; PayPal (PYPL), Shopify (SHOP), and Tesla (TSLA) bought by Ark Investment Management; and Salesforce (CRM) and Disney (DIS) bought by ValueAct Holdings. We also note one significant sale: Apple Inc. (AAPL) by Berkshire. Turning to sectors, we note that over the past week, insider buying outpaced selling in the Energy sector by a factor of 11.3-times. On the flipside, selling by insiders last week was greatest in Financials, with shares valued at $474 million sold versus less than $2 million bought. This week, analysts at Vickers highlighted insider transactions of interest at Comstock Resources Inc. (NYSE: CRK) and Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC).