Utility stocks have been heating up in recent weeks, and MerrillLynch is jumping on the bandwagon with a proposal to invest up to$1 billion in a new trading vehicle, Utilities Holdrs (UTH), madeup of the stocks of 20 utility companies.

Enron tops the list of utilities that will comprise the newsecurity with a 9.82% initial weighting, followed by: Duke Energy9.78%, Williams 8.85%, Southern Co. 8.42%, PG&E 5.3%, El PasoEnergy 5.04%, Texas Utilities 4.71%, Unicom 4.63%, FPL Group 4.38%,Dominion Resources 4.19%, Peco Energy 3.94%, Reliant Energy 3.9%,Public Service Enterprise Group 3.75%, Consolidated Edison 3.63%,Edison International 3.47%, American Electric Power 3.45%, Dynegy3.41%, Entergy 3.28%, Carolina Power & Light 3.09%, FirstEnergy2.97%.Utilities Holdrs will be sold on the AMEX, Merrill Lynchsaid in its filing Monday with the Securities and ExchangeCommission.

Since the mid-March market crash in the tech sector, investorsseeking more security have driven the Dow Jones Utilities Index upabout 16%. Merrill Lynch also is catering to investors seekingsafety with another new securities holding company comprised ofregional banks. The new offerings will be structured in the sameway the financial house has set up its nine other sectorsecurities. Shares can only be bought and sold in increments of 100shares. One of its earlier offerings, its B2B Holdrs (BHH), hasdropped from $113 in March to $37 and change yesterday.

Some other natural gas and utility-related mutual funds havebeen racking up gains. Fidelity Select Natural Gas (FSNGX), withits top holdings in Coastal, Williams, Enron, Burlington Resources,Vastar Resources, BP Amoco, Anadarko Petroleum, Apache, Santa FeSnyder, and AES Corp, is up 16% since early March. The more sedateAmerican Gas Index Fund has increased 12% in the same time period.Its top holdings are in Consolidated Natural Gas, Coastal, Duke, ElPaso, Columbia Energy, Williams, PG&E, Enron, Keyspan, andSempra.

Vanguard’s Select Energy has shown a gain of nearly 16% sincemid-March with top holdings in the international oil and servicessectors including: ExxonMobil, Unocal, Chevron, Texaco,Halliburton, Schhlumberger, Weatherford International, ShellTransport & Trading, Vastar, and Kerr-McGee.

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