A day following the Dow Jones Industrial Average's (DJINDICES: ^DJI ) worst loss of the year, blue chips rallied from their lows on strong earnings from two of America's most recognizable brands. A report showing that inflation hasn't yet taken a strong hold also helped today's rally, as investors believe this may indicate a continuation of more stimulus efforts from the Federal Reserve. The Dow ended with a 157 point, or 1.1%, gain, closing at 14,756.
Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO ) was the star of the day, adding a remarkable 5.7% after earnings that beat expectations by a long shot. Although earnings per share actually declined 13% in the first quarter, but that was good enough to beat analyst projections for the quarter. And Coke's sales actually rose 4% in the period, with international growth coming in higher than domestic growth.
Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS ) , a company that has come to represent much more than just Mickey Mouse's iconic large ears, tacked on 3.2% Tuesday. Sports broadcasting giant ESPN, a subsidiary of Disney's, delayed a joint news conference with the Southeastern Conference scheduled for Tuesday after the tragic events at the Boston Marathon yesterday. Though nothing's certain about the topic of the press conference, investors are hoping it will usher in the SEC's very own network.
Best Defense Companies To Buy For 2015: 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 Rick Aristotle Munarriz]
Alamy Companies can make brilliant moves, but there are also times when things don't work out quite as planned. From an underwhelming iPhone event to Pandora's new CEO, here's a rundown of the week's best and worst moves in the business world. Apple (AAPL) -- Loser Shares of the consumer tech giant had rallied heading into Tuesday's iPhone event, but the love didn't last. The stock began to sell off while Apple was still presenting its updated smartphones. There were no smartwatches, no high-def smart TVs, and no magical unicorns offered up at the presentation. The market was also unimpressed to find that the cheaper iPhone that everyone was hoping would make inroads into Android's 80 percent global market share wound up being just $100 cheaper than the new iPhone 5s. Apple only updates its iPhones annually, so it was also a letdown to see the company once again fail to produce phones with screens larger than four inches. Yes, Apple is spicing up the shell colors across both new iPhone lines, but the actual screens are too small compared to the larger Android devices that many consumers are choosing these days. Pandora (P) -- Winner The leading music streaming service had been searching for a new CEO for months, and it finally found one. Brian McAndrews -- who at one time ran digital marketing powerhouse aQuantive before selling it to Microsoft (MSFT) in a $6 billion deal -- will take control of the leading media platform that serves up 1.35 billion hours a month to its more than 72 million active listeners. It's a smart hire. Pandora didn't need a big terrestrial radio guru. Pandora isn't about content programming. It already has the technology in place that serves up timely music recommendations and adapts to a listeners preferences. Pandora's major challenge remains to monetize its growing airplay, and that's where McAndrews is the perfect fit for a fast-growing company that's just starting to impress marketers. The Dow -- Loser The Dow Jones Industr
- [By Paul Ausick]
The stock doing its best to sink the Dow 30 today was Visa Inc. (NYSE: V). The credit and debit card issuer was hit with a $5 billion lawsuit this morning. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is the first of the big retailers to file its own case for damages related to card swipe fees charged by Visa and other issuers. Visa�� stock traded down 1.91% today at $211.65 in a 52-week range of $161.27 to $235.50. Trading volume was nearly equal to the daily average of around 3.2 million shares traded.
- [By Amanda Alix]
A long-standing dispute between credit card issuers Visa (NYSE: V ) and MasterCard (NYSE: MA ) and the businesses that accept consumer payments via those instruments is heating up again, as a flurry of lawsuits filed on both sides over a prior settlement regarding interchange fees jump-start the hostilities all over again.
- [By Jeremy Bowman]
Visa (NYSE: V ) led the Dow winners, gaining 3.1%, as it jumped on good news from rival MasterCard (NYSE: MA ) , whose shares jumped 3.5% after announcing a 10-for-1 stock split and a $3.5 billion repurchase plan. With a market cap of $95 billion, the $3.5 billion repurchase program should lift earnings per share over the long run by about 3.5% so today's jump may be a little exaggerated. Stock splits, while often generating attention and enthusiasm, should have no effect on a stock movement. The credit card company also said it would hike its quarterly dividend to raise its yield from 0.3% to 0.55%. Both companies have relatively low dividend yield, but rake in gobs of free cash flow. Many market observers expect the capital being returned to shareholders to increase.
Hot 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 Demitrios Kalogeropoulos]
Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL )
Colgate's shares are trading well below the $62 high they hit just last month. The consumer goods company is heavily levered to international sales, with more than 80% of its business coming from outside the U.S. and more than half coming from emerging markets.
Hot 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 Hill]
This week at the WSJ All Things Digital conference in California, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) CEO Tim Cook said that Apple has "several more game changers." Cook also said that he didn't think Google (NASDAQ: GOOG ) glasses would appeal to the mainstream. What should investors make of the Apple CEO's latest musings? Is Cook smart to raise expectations? In this installment of Motley Fool Money, our analysts tackle those questions.
- [By Paul Ausick]
The obvious benefits to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and China Mobile Ltd. (NYSE: CHL) from the deal announced Sunday night also trickle down to semiconductor makers that supply Apple with memory and RF chips for the iPhone. We have already written about the planned spread of China Mobile’s 4G (TD-LTE) network from 16 Chinese cities at the end of this year to 340 cities by the end of next year. That network build-out will add millions of potential iPhone customers from among China Mobile’s 763 million subscribers.
Hot 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 John Divine]
Lastly, shares of�International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM ) �shed 2.3% to lead the blue chip index lower. IBM is the heaviest-weighted component in the 30-stock price-weighted Dow, comprising 10% of the index's value. That means that, if identical percentage moves were made by IBM and Alcoa in the same day, IBM's would be 25 times more impactful on the Dow's closing price, due to Alcoa's mere 0.4% weighting. With IT rival Accenture�slumping more than 10% today after weak earnings, it was bound to be a rough day for both Big Blue and the Dow Jones.�
- [By Johanna Bennett]
Technology stocks performed well on Wednesday. Former Dow component Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) rallied after a better-than-expected earnings report. International Business Machines (IBM) led gainers in the Dow industrials.
- [By Inyoung Hwang]
Analysts predict earnings at International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), which gets more than half its sales from abroad, will climb 10 percent this year, the slowest since 2004. Shares have slumped 7.7 percent in 2013. Caterpillar Inc., where more than 60 percent of sales is from overseas, cut its 2013 revenue forecast last week. The biggest maker of construction and mining equipment is down 5.4 percent in 2013.
- [By M. Joy Hayes]
When IBM (NYSE: IBM ) and 3M (NYSE: MMM ) objected to a proposed regulation that would grant some investors the right to list their director nominees on company proxy statements, they expressed the concern that shareholder-backed directors would serve the narrow group that supported them rather than representing all shareholders.
Hot 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 Anders Bylund]
Exxon is a bit of an anomaly, as the company manages to stick close to the Dow average here, dishing out 45.7% of its free cash, while the broader oil industry tends to jump around at the whim of changing petroleum prices. Fellow oil-producer Chevron (NYSE: CVX ) isn't so lucky, spending 86% of its free cash on dividend checks. The roles were the same a year earlier, though the magnitudes were different: Chevron invested 41.8% of its 2011 cash flow in dividends, while Exxon's ratio was an even lower 37%.
- [By Dan Carroll]
China's fellow BRIC member, Russia, comes in as even cheaper, with an average P/E of just 6. That's a cheaper valuation than any member of the Dow currently; the closest blue-chip stock to Russia is Chevron (NYSE: CVX ) , which sports a P/E of 8.9. Coincidentally, one of Chevron's biggest global rivals has become one of Russia's brightest companies: Russian state-owned oil major Rosneft became the largest publicly traded oil company in the world in March after purchasing TNK-BP, outstripping Chevron and fellow energy rivals in size.
- [By Laura Brodbeck]
Friday
Earnings Expected From: Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX), OM Group, Inc. (NYSE: OMG), Public Storage (NYSE: PSA) Economic Releases Expected: �US ISM manufacturing index, Canadian manufacturing PMI, British manufacturing PMI, Norwegian unemployment ratePosted-In: Bank Of England Federal ReserveNews Eurozone Commodities Previews Global Economics Federal Reserve After-Hours Center Markets Trading Ideas Best of Benzinga
Hot 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 Rupert Hargreaves]
After a�record�first half, tobacco stocks are now starting to pull back as the high-yield sector of the market is sold-off. During the first six and a half months of the year, Altria (NYSE: MO ) matched the S&P 500 with gains of 17.5%, while�Reynolds American (NYSE: RAI ) �climbed 24% and Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM ) �advanced�7.3%, all excluding dividends (the S&P 500 gained 18% over the same period). However, since the recent sell-off began, all three companies have wiped out most of their gains so far this year.��
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