NextEra Energy Shares Trending Higher - What Should The Bulls Do?

NextEra Energy Inc NEE has bounced beautifully off of key long-term support and has rallied very close to new all-time highs.

Dividend-paying utilities have benefited from the low-interest rate environment over the last several years. With the prospect of rates moving a bit higher going forward, especially after the Federal Reserve's announcement about the end of their QE efforts, can the stock continue to benefit in the same way as the last several years?

What The Bulls See

• A healthy dividend of 2.9 percent annually, although it is not as high as some of its utility cousins.
• Some cheap valuation metrics: An enterprise value of $73.29 billion versus a market capitalization of $44.39 billion, a price-to-book ratio of 2.36 and a price-to-sales ratio of 2.77.
• 21.85 percent operating margins that spin-off over $5.6 billion in annual operating cash flow.

What The Bears See

• A relatively high PE when compared to estimated 2015 revenue and EPS growth of 4.6 percent and 7 percent, respectively.
• A heavy debt load: Only $485 million in cash equivalents versus over $29 billion in debt, a debt-to-equity ratio of 153.69 percent and a current ratio of only 0.59.

The Technical Take

Technicians love the relative strength in NextEra shares versus other energy/electric companies. The stock pulled back nicely in "abc" fashion and held critical "correction support" (as well as the long-term uptrend line) in mid-October. Since that bottom, the stock has rallied nearly 10 percent, which is pretty nice for an energy/electric company. Support comes in at $97.52, $95.32 and $93.02, while resistance for the stock comes in around the June peak at $102.50.

Overall…

Bulls will be looking to buy and bears will be looking to lighten up on their positions if and when NextEra stock dips down to one of the multiple layers of support notated on the chart. This is a bullish stock story seemingly still in progress.