The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that analysts are upbeat about Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP, but their optimism is at odds with a unit price that slipped toward five-year lows in Toronto this week. The Globe's David Berman writes that the former star is now the biggest laggard within the S&P/TSX 60 Index this year. The units are down more than 28 per cent in 2023, punctuated by a particularly steep sell-off since mid-September. After years of strong performance, the units are now trailing the blue chip Canadian index by 36 percentage points over the past five years, without including dividends. Investors have bet that the company's globally diversified portfolio of electricity distribution, toll roads, telecom towers and pipelines will generate steady long-term cash flows and underpin rising dividends. That wager is looking increasingly frail. Barry Schwartz at Baskin Wealth Management, which holds a small position in Brookfield, said in a statement that rising rates are responsible for recent setbacks in all sorts of dividend-generating stocks. "Check out the performance year-to-date of many U.S. REITs, MLPs, pipelines, etc. All crap as rates have risen," Mr. Schwartz said.