Chris Johnson

5 Infrastructure Stocks to Build Into Your Portfolio

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With the presidential inauguration around the corner, investors are trying to anticipate what investments will be hot in January.

Given the current economic environment, though, perhaps we should replace "hot" with "sectors that have a fighting chance."

One sector that has received a great deal of attention is infrastructure, which is destined (from what we're being told) to play a major role in the new administration's economic plans.

Now that the Fed has pledged to "employ all available tools to promote the resumption of sustainable economic growth," the other piece of the puzzle is getting the economy back to work.

Hello, infrastructure!

Building Out Your Trading Account

If infrastructure is the place to be, then where should we look for specific trades?

You can always find and research individual companies, but that takes some effort. And individual stocks can be hit-or-miss.

Surely, there are exchange-traded funds (ETFs) out there that will do the job, right?

After all, there's an ETF for almost anything these days. You can invest in "drug discovery tools," timber, biofuels or even cancer. So, there must be a few for such a broad area as infrastructure, right?

Well, yes and no.

Yes, as in there are a few with "infrastructure" in the name. But no, as in nothing very liquid.

Let's look at a few funds you should consider:

1. iShares S&P Global Infrastructure Index Fund

The granddaddy of the infrastructure ETF world is the iShares S&P Global Infrastructure Index Fund (IGF). It's been around for a year, has net assets of about $140 million, and trades about 68,000 shares per day.

Only two of its top 10 holdings -- Spectra Energy (SE) and Williams (WMB) -- are U.S.-based. It's down about 40% so far this year.