After the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI ) charged to a new record high yesterday on the back of strong economic data, the blue chips gave back exactly all of those gains today, falling 106 points, or 0.7%. There was no major news dragging the Dow down, but fear of the Fed's curtailing its stimulus program has hung in the air for the past week, and investors also seem to feel the market rally may have gotten ahead of itself as major indexes are already up more than 15% this year.
Ten-Year Treasury Yields (INDEX: ^TNX) also climbed to as high as 2.23% last night, their highest mark in more than a year, which seems to have provoked a flight from dividend stocks to the safer T-notes. The Fed's murmurs on cutting its bond-buying program also seem to have prompted the rise in treasury yields as loose monetary policy is generally bad for bond investors since it can cause inflation. The benchmark bond yields are up more than 10% since Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech last Wednesday.
Top Stocks To Buy: McDonald's Corporation(MCD)
McDonald?s Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a worldwide foodservice retailer. It franchises and operates McDonald?s restaurants that offer various food items, soft drinks, coffee, and other beverages. As of December 31, 2009, the company operated 32,478 restaurants in 117 countries, of which 26,216 were operated by franchisees; and 6,262 were operated by the company. McDonald?s Corporation was founded in 1948 and is based in Oak Brook, Illinois.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Chris Hill]
Shares of McDonald's (NYSE: MCD ) fell on Friday after the company reported that global sales dropped in the first quarter. After hitting an all-time high earlier in April, is the stock poised for a rebound, or more of a pullback? In this segment, James Early shares his hope for humanity, while analyzing the restaurant giant.
10 Best Blue Chip Stocks To Buy For 2014: Colgate-Palmolive Company(CL)
Colgate-Palmolive Company, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and markets consumer products worldwide. It offers oral care products, including toothpaste, toothbrushes, and mouth rinses, as well as dental floss and pharmaceutical products for dentists and other oral health professionals; personal care products, such as liquid hand soap, shower gels, bar soaps, deodorants, antiperspirants, shampoos, and conditioners; and home care products comprising laundry and dishwashing detergents, fabric conditioners, household cleaners, bleaches, dishwashing liquids, and oil soaps. The company offers its oral, personal, and home care products under the Colgate Total, Colgate Max Fresh, Colgate 360 Advisors' Opinion:
- [By Dan Caplinger]
Moreover, it's starting to appear that Clorox has weathered a tough part of its business cycle. Throughout the industry, Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG ) , Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL ) , and Clorox all had to deal with rising costs for the inputs they needed to make their respective products. The companies responded by implementing price-cutting measures and passing on part of their higher costs to their customers. For its part, Clorox was able to expand its gross margins by a full percentage point, with a worse-than-normal flu season contributing to sales. Now that input-cost inflation is easing, P&G and Clorox expect to see better profitability, with growth starting to approach the faster rates that Colgate has enjoyed.
- [By Ong Kang Wei]
Another example of such a product is Colgate-Palmolive (CL)'s Colgate toothpaste. I do not think I have to elaborate much here. Toothpaste is needed in our everyday life, and we will definitely have to buy more toothpaste after we have finished using a packet of it, ensuring that Colgate gets more and more sales over the years.
10 Best Blue Chip Stocks To Buy For 2014: International Business Machines Corporation(IBM)
International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) provides information technology (IT) products and services worldwide. Its Global Technology Services segment provides IT infrastructure and business process services, including strategic outsourcing, process, integrated technology, and maintenance services, as well as technology-based support services. The company?s Global Business Services segment offers consulting and systems integration, and application management services. Its Software segment offers middleware and operating systems software, such as WebSphere software to integrate and manage business processes; information management software for database and enterprise content management, information integration, data warehousing, business analytics and intelligence, performance management, and predictive analytics; Tivoli software for identity management, data security, storage management, and datacenter automation; Lotus software for collaboration, messaging, and so cial networking; rational software to support software development for IT and embedded systems; business intelligence software, which provides querying and forecasting tools; SPSS predictive analytics software to predict outcomes and act on that insight; and operating systems software. Its Systems and Technology segment provides computing and storage solutions, including servers, disk and tape storage systems and software, point-of-sale retail systems, and microelectronics. The company?s Global Financing segment provides lease and loan financing to end users and internal clients; commercial financing to dealers and remarketers of IT products; and remanufacturing and remarketing services. It serves financial services, public, industrial, distribution, communications, and general business sectors. The company was formerly known as Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. and changed its name to International Business Machines Corporation in 1924. IBM was founded in 1910 and is based in Armonk, New York.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Wallace Witkowski]
Other notable earnings fall toward the tech end of the spectrum with reports from Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) , Intel Corp. (INTC) , International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) , eBay Inc. (EBAY) and Google Inc. (GOOG) .
10 Best Blue Chip Stocks To Buy For 2014: Apple Inc.(AAPL)
Apple Inc., together with subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and markets personal computers, mobile communication and media devices, and portable digital music players, as well as sells related software, services, peripherals, networking solutions, and third-party digital content and applications worldwide. The company sells its products worldwide through its online stores, retail stores, direct sales force, third-party wholesalers, resellers, and value-added resellers. In addition, it sells third-party Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod compatible products, including application software, printers, storage devices, speakers, headphones, and other accessories and peripherals through its online and retail stores; and digital content and applications through the iTunes Store. The company sells its products to consumer, small and mid-sized business, education, enterprise, government, and creative markets. As of September 25, 2010, it had 317 retail stores, including 233 stores in the United States and 84 stores internationally. The company, formerly known as Apple Computer, Inc., was founded in 1976 and is headquartered in Cupertino, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Douglas A. McIntyre]
For all of its trouble, based on worries that Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has lost its magic and can no longer build iPhones which will create huge sales, there is a strong case that it has lost very little ground in the smartphone business, at least in the U.S.
- [By Mani]
Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) should get greater margin contribution from iPhone 5S and 5C than iPhone 5 for the 16GB version and margins could even better Apple's guidance.
- [By Intelligent Speculator]
A few months ago, when the Associated Press twitter account was hacked and a false message about a fire at the White House appeared, the market quickly tanked only to get right back once it was rebuffed. That is certainly one (illegal) way to use Twitter for financial gain. This week, we saw a much more legitimate way to use Twitter. Carl Icahn (@Carl_C_Icahn), one of the most powerful investors in the world announced he had a big stake in Apple (AAPL) with over $1.5B in stock. The stock shot up instantly.
- [By Rex Crum]
Apple (AAPL) , meanwhile, fell by 1% to close at $525.96 in advance of the iPad maker�� quarterly results, due after the close of trading Monday.
10 Best Blue Chip Stocks To Buy For 2014: Visa Inc.(V)
Visa Inc., a payments technology company, engages in the operation of retail electronic payments network worldwide. It facilitates commerce through the transfer of value and information among financial institutions, merchants, consumers, businesses, and government entities. The company owns and operates VisaNet, a global processing platform that provides transaction processing services. It also offers a range of payments platforms, which enable credit, charge, deferred debit, debit, and prepaid payments, as well as cash access for consumers, businesses, and government entities. The company provides its payment platforms under the Visa, Visa Electron, PLUS, and Interlink brand names. In addition, it offers value-added services, including risk management, issuer processing, loyalty, dispute management, value-added information, and CyberSource-branded services. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Charles Carlson]
The only three Dow stocks that do not are actually, interestingly, two of the newest members, Goldman Sachs (GS) and Visa (V), and the third stock is UnitedHealth Group (UNH), which is also a fairly new member to the Dow.
10 Best Blue Chip Stocks To Buy For 2014: Philip Morris International Inc(PM)
Philip Morris International Inc., through its subsidiaries, engages in the manufacture and sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products in markets outside of the United States. Its international product brand line comprises Marlboro, Merit, Parliament, Virginia Slims, L&M, Chesterfield, Bond Street, Lark, Muratti, Next, Philip Morris, and Red & White. The company also offers its products under the A Mild, Dji Sam Soe, and A Hijau in Indonesia; Diana in Italy; Optima and Apollo-Soyuz in the Russian Federation; Morven Gold in Pakistan; Boston in Colombia; Belmont, Canadian Classics, and Number 7 in Canada; Best and Classic in Serbia; f6 in Germany; Delicados in Mexico; Assos in Greece; and Petra in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It operates primarily in the European Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Canada, and Latin America. The company is based in New York, New York.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Patricio Kehoe]
Phillip Morris International Inc. (PM) is the world�� largest tobacco manufacturer in the world, after China National Tobacco, and holds 29% of the entire industry�� market, outside the U.S and China. Most commonly known for its flagship brand, Marlboro (accounts for one-third of total volume), this firm also owns seven of the 15 international leading cigarette brands. Its supporting brands ���&M, Phillip Morris, Bond Street, Parliament, Chesterfield and Lark ���ave allowed the company to attain consistent growth margins over the past decade. Given its addictive product and global manufacturing and distribution system, this comes as little surprise.
- [By Albert Alfonso]
Altria's anticipated EPS growth rate is important to determine the level of its next dividend increase. Altria aims to increase its dividend in line with EPS growth. Since its 2008 spin-off of Philip Morris International (PM), Altria's dividend increases have averaged a CAGR of 8.7%. Also during this timeframe, Altria has averaged a dividend payout ratio of 80%. Altria has a long history of dividend increases, and has increased its dividend 46 times in the past 44 years.
- [By Holly LaFon]
Company % of Assets Pepsico (PEP) 3.4 Philip Morris (PM) 2.3 Tesco PLC ADR (TSCO) 2.1 Molson Coors Brewing (TAP) 2.1 Microsoft (MSFT) 1.9 Merck (MRK) 1.9 Procter & Gamble (PG) 1.8 Avon Products (AVN) 1.6 Wal��art (WMT) 1.6 Medtronic 1.6 Hospira (HSP) 1.5 BP (BP) 1.4 Medco Health Solutions (MHS) 1.3 Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) 1.3 Unilever NV (UL) 1.3
Jeff is also optimistic about natural gas and believes the recession in Europe could be setting up "a generational buying opportunity."
10 Best Blue Chip Stocks To Buy For 2014: Chevron Corporation(CVX)
Chevron Corporation, through its subsidiaries, engages in petroleum, chemicals, mining, power generation, and energy operations worldwide. It operates in two segments, Upstream and Downstream. The Upstream segment involves in the exploration, development, and production of crude oil and natural gas; processing, liquefaction, transportation, and regasification associated with liquefied natural gas; transportation of crude oil through pipelines; and transportation, storage, and marketing of natural gas, as well as holds interest in a gas-to-liquids project. The Downstream segment engages in the refining of crude oil into petroleum products; marketing of crude oil and refined products primarily under the Chevron, Texaco, and Caltex brand names; transportation of crude oil and refined products by pipeline, marine vessel, motor equipment, and rail car; and manufacture and marketing of commodity petrochemicals, plastics for industrial uses, and fuel and lubricant additives. It a lso produces and markets coal and molybdenum; and holds interests in 13 power assets with a total operating capacity of approximately 3,100 megawatts, as well as involves in cash management and debt financing activities, insurance operations, real estate activities, energy services, and alternative fuels and technology business. Chevron Corporation has a joint venture agreement with China National Petroleum Corporation. The company was formerly known as ChevronTexaco Corp. and changed its name to Chevron Corporation in May 2005. Chevron Corporation was founded in 1879 and is based in San Ramon, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Claudia Assis]
Major oil companies, however, declined, with shares of Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) �down 0.1%. Chevron Corp. (CVX) �shares were off 0.3%, while shares of ConocoPhillips (COP) �fell 0.4%.
- [By Matt Thalman]
Light Crude also lost today, as the price per barrel fell 2.37%. This is likely one reason why shares of Dow components�Chevron (NYSE: CVX ) and ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM ) ended the session lower. Chevron fell 0.84%, while Exxon fared slightly better, only losing 0.26% of its value.
- [By Claudia Assis]
Big Oil shares were higher as well, with Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) �shares up 0.3%. Chevron Corp. (CVX) �shares rose 0.5%, while shares of ConocoPhillips (COP) �advanced 0.9%.
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