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 Defensive Companies To Own In Right Now: 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 Rick Munarriz]
Naturally, this leads one to wonder how Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX ) and McDonald's (NYSE: MCD ) -- two retail giants that have moved from traditional coffee to offer icy coffee beverages that have been sweetened -- as potential targets in the attack on caffeine.�
- [By Douglas A. McIntyre]
Some of the workers at Amazon.com Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) German�logistics centers�have gone on strike to protest what they claim are low wages and what they see as�the blocking of collective bargaining. Amazon believes that these people are adequately paid, and even paid more than those who work at most other�logistics centers in Germany.�Viewed from the United States, the circumstances appear�similar to those that have caused strikes against American companies that pay little more than the minimum wage. These strikes are usually aimed at America’s�largest retailer — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) — and the largest fast-food company — McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD).
- [By Paul Ausick]
Big Earnings Movers: McDonald�� Corp. (NYSE: MCD) is down 0.6% at $94.59 after a so-so report and a downbeat forecast. Halliburton Co. (NYSE: HAL) is down 3.4% at $50.67 on added caution for the current quarter. V.F. Corp. (NYSE: VFC) is up 3.4% at $211.24. SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) is up 3.6% at $76.38. NVR Corp. (NYSE: NVR) is down 4.1% at $893.40.
Top Blue Chip Companies 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 Chris Neiger]
Let's step back and think about this for a minute. How likely is it for the average consumer who wants a streaming video unit to buy a $400 Xbox One? I'd say ridiculously unlikely. Not when that same consumer can buy a $50 Roku player or a $100 Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) TV. Those systems offer an amazing amount of content, are much smaller, and arguably less complicated to set up and use for beginners.
- [By Andrew Tonner]
Apple� (NASDAQ: AAPL ) reported its latest quarterly earnings, and the market was ambivalent. In this video, Andrew Tonner makes the case for owning Apple now that its earnings report is in. First, Apple moved to return capital to shareholders. This came in the form of increasing its dividend and initiating a stock buyback. Even better, Apple used low-cost debt to help fund all this, thus avoiding U.S. taxes.
- [By Doug Ehrman]
The recent statistics released by Gartner�regarding the worldwide sale of devices including smartphones, tablets, and PCs, could lead you to conclude that Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) is in trouble. Rather than accept this as pure reality, Fool.com contributor Doug Ehrman discusses different perspectives on the numbers in the video below. While it would be difficult to argue that Microsoft is keeping pace with either Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) or Google (NASDAQ: GOOG ) on certain fronts, Microsoft continues to have its unique strengths.
Top Blue Chip Companies 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 Marc Bastow]
A total of 19 companies raised their dividends this week, led by big names like Visa (V) and Honeywell (HON). (Note: All dividend yields are as of Oct. 25.)
Top Blue Chip Companies 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 Dan Caplinger]
On Thursday, IBM (NYSE: IBM ) will release its latest quarterly results. The key to making smart investment decisions on stocks reporting earnings is to anticipate how they'll do before they announce results, leaving you fully prepared to respond quickly to whatever surprises inevitably arise. That way, you'll be less likely to have an uninformed, knee-jerk reaction that turns out to be exactly the wrong move.
Top Blue Chip Companies 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 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.
- [By Dan Caplinger]
One concern, though, is how the company handled news of Venezuela's currency devaluation. Clorox (NYSE: CLX ) and Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL ) also felt the pinch, with Clorox taking about a $0.05 to $0.10 per-share earnings hit and Colgate losing about $0.50 per share. But they also addressed the potential devaluation more proactively than P&G did. Clorox actually�anticipated�the devaluation in its February earnings report, projecting the potential hit if a devaluation took place. Colgate didn't provide specific guidance in advance but clearly saw it as an issue, delivering on a promise to give prompt guidance revisions after the devaluation occurred.
Top Blue Chip Companies 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 GuruFocus]
The decade low yield of tobacco stocks can be clearly seen from our new interactive charts, which are embedded below. The chart shows the dividend yield of three tobacco stocks: Reynolds American (RAI), Philip Morris International (PM) and British American Tobacco (BTI).
Top Blue Chip Companies 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 Travis Hoium]
If you thought stocks were getting hit hard today, you need to take a look at the commodities market. Gold is down 9.6% as I write, silver has fallen 12.9%, and oil is down 2.7% to less than $89 per barrel. This drop has hit oil giants Chevron (NYSE: CVX ) and ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM ) , who are down 2.5% and 2.3%, respectively. You can see in the chart below that a drop in oil's price may impact earnings at both companies, but it'll have to be a lot more severe than $2 per barrel.
- [By Matt Thalman]
A few stocks are being hurt by lower commodity prices. Both of the major oil and gas components of the Dow are also falling today. Chevron (NYSE: CVX ) is down 2.4%, while ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM ) has lost 2.2%. The price of a barrel of light crude oil has fallen 3.6% today, and unleaded gasoline per gallon is down 1.67%. The feared slowdown in China is likely the reason the price of oil is dropping. However, as we have seen in the past, the price of oil falls only briefly before moving higher again. Investors in Chevron or Exxon should ride out this temporary downturn and wait for higher prices at the pump.
- [By Arjun Sreekumar]
3 companies seeing success in the Gulf
Chevron (NYSE: CVX ) , for instance, has had a string of exploration successes in the region, including its most recent deepwater oil discovery in the Coronado prospect about 200 miles off the Louisiana coast. The company's test well, jointly owned with ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP ) , has a 35% interest, and Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC ) , which has a 15% interest, unveiled more than 400 feet of oil-bearing rocks. - [By Wallace Witkowski]
With quarterly reports out from Dow energy components like ExxonMobil (XOM) �on Thursday and Chevron (CVX) �on Friday, investors will be combing outlooks for evidence of the economic recovery, said Robert Pavlik, chief market strategist at Banyan Partners.
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