When the Texas Panhandle went up in flames this winter, the news spread fast on Wall Street. An electric utility by the name of Xcel Energy Inc. was getting blamed for the massive blaze — a lawsuit pointed the finger at its dilapidated equipment — and this was making the company’s investors very nervous.
Throughout the morning of Feb. 29, investors unloaded shares. By early that afternoon, the stock was down nearly 10%. Bond prices were sinking too, triggering a spike in Xcel’s yields. For money managers who had long treated the utility’s bonds as