Income-Seeking Investors: Levels Fact and Utilities Sector

income-seeking investors: There has been a pullback for the S&P 500 utilities and telecommunications industries after price-to-earnings valuations rose to very high levels: Fact Set Caption outside of wrapper for normal article images But the trend has still been up, with the utilities sector returning 10.2% so far in 2016, in line with the telecommunications sector 10.1% return, according to Market Watch. The benchmark S&P 500 has returned 6.2% . The big theme for large-cap U.S. stocks this year has been the flight to yield and to lower volatility, as income-seeking investors have fewer options in the seemingly eternal low-interest-rate environment. So we've identified six possible value dividend stocks in the S&P 500 Index SPX, +0.22% The companies pass some screens for quality — more on that below — yet their shares have declined this year. So we thought it would be useful to look at which dividend stocks have not risen this year, and then apply a few screening filters to narrow a list of companies for further research and possible investment. Starting with the S&P 500, 106 stocks had dividend yields of at least 3% as of Dec. 31, 2015, according to Fact Set. You might be asking: Why buy a stock that is down for the year The answer: Value-fund managers do it all the time, as potential gains might be higher than for stocks that have already been bid up. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.