ROE v. Paid: Utility Earnings Power Outage

Twelve of the 37 utility stocks in the S&P 500 lost more than half their value in 2002 -- bad luck for widows and orphans everywhere.

It was an ugly year for the power-company sector -- once deemed safe enough for the above demographic groups -- amid continuing fallout from the Enron debacle and the implosions of onetime stalwarts Dynegy(DYN Quote), El Paso(EP Quote), and Williams(WMB Quote). Investors surveying the wreckage might be hard-pressed to explain how any executives -- current or recently ousted -- merited any pay at all in 2002. The ROE v. Paid: Utilities chart shows that the executives got by. ...