Best Blue Chip Companies To Watch For 2014

Stocks made back much of yesterday’s losses as the minutes from the last FOMC meeting revealed nothing we hadn’t already known. Goldman Sachs (GS) and Microsoft (MSFT) led blue chips higher, while Tiffany (TIF), Lorillard (LO) and Netflix (NFLX) were the big gainers among large-company stocks.

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 158.75 points, or 1%, to 16,533.06 today, while the S&P 500 gained 0.8% to 1,888.03. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.8% to 4,131.54, while the small-company Russell 2000 finished up 0.5% at 1,103.63. The 10-year Treasury yield rose 0.03 percentage point to 2.54%.

Goldman Sachs rose 1.9% to $159.35 today, making it the biggest gainer in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, after announcing that it was seeking to sell its commodity warehouse business, while Microsoft gained 1.7% to $40.35 a day after launching its super-sized tablet computer. Microsoft was the second-largest percentage gainer in the Dow.

Top Industrial Conglomerate Stocks For 2015: 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 Bob Ciura]

  Investors often flock to consumer staples companies because of their stable businesses that produce reliable profits, year-in and year-out. Even when the economy takes a nosedive, companies like The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE: PG  ) and Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE: CL  ) see their earnings stay afloat. After all, even when consumers are under economic distress, they still have to buy everyday household items like toothpaste, soap, and paper towels.

• [By Dan Caplinger]

  Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG  ) will release its quarterly report on Friday, and investors have watched the stock hit new all-time record highs in November before falling back in the past two months. Despite the optimism, Procter & Gamble earnings face pressure from international giant Unilever (NYSE: UL  ) as well as domestic rivals Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL  ) and Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB  ) . The question facing investors is whether P&G can sustain its longtime competitive advantages against its rivals and bolster its growth.

• [By Motley Fool Staff]

  Andres Cardenal:�Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL  ) , generates most of its sales and cash flows from its leadership position in the oral care industry. Management estimates that the company owns a global market share of 44.4% in toothpastes, 33.2% in toothbrushes, and 38.9% in mouthwashes.

• [By Eric Volkman]

  It's one of the steadiest dividend payers on the market, and it's continuing to fly level. Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL  ) has declared a fresh quarterly common stock dividend, which is to be $0.34 per share, paid on August 15 to shareholders of record as of July 23. That amount matches the firm's previous distribution; this was paid in May. Prior to that, Colgate-Palmolive handed out $0.31 per share.

Best Blue Chip Companies To Watch 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 Dan Radovsky]

  A labor right groups put out a report today alleging that Taiwanese company Pegatron Group, a major supplier of parts to Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL  ) , is violating Chinese labor laws in ways including making workers labor long overtime hours "to turn out a scaled-back, less expensive version of the iPhone."

• [By Jake L'Ecuyer]

  Top Headline
  Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is in talks to acquire headphone maker Beats Electronics, according to a Financial Times report from Thursday afternoon. The deal is rumored to be around $3.2 billion, which would make it Apple's largest acquisition to date.

• [By Evan Niu, CFA]

  Both Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL  ) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG  ) now boast roughly 800,000 apps each in their respective App Store and Google Play storefronts. It's entirely true that a lot of those apps offer duplicate functionality (flashlight apps) or are low quality (fart apps), but it's also true that many of those offerings can't be found on other platforms because indie-developers and start-ups always target the bigger platforms first.

• [By DailyFinance Staff]

  The looming Fed taper has been the talk of Wall Street for months, but it still came as a surprise to investors when it actually happened. Stocks rallied Wednesday following the Fed's decision to cut its $85 billion a month purchase of bonds by $10 billion, beginning in January. Outgoing Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the economy continues to "make progress." The Dow Jones industrial average (^DJI) soared 292 points on the news, its third biggest one-day gain this year. The Dow also hit a closing high, as did the Standard & Poor's 500 index (^GPSC), which gained 29 points. And the Nasdaq composite (^IXIC) rose 46 points. Consider it Bernanke's final present to the market before he retires from his position atop the Fed. Among the big blue chip winners, 3M (MMM) rose 3 percent, while Exxon Mobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX) and Goldman Sachs (GS) all rose 2 percent. But Microsoft (MSFT) was flat, reflecting across the board weakness in tech stocks. Many of the biggest players on the Nasdaq lost ground despite the overall market rally. Apple (AAPL) and Twitter (TWTR) ended lower and Tesla (TSLA) lost nearly 3 percent. Part of the reason for the tech weakness was an earnings miss and a weak forecast from Jabil Circuits (JBL), a key maker of electronics. Its shares plunged 20 percent. But homebuilders were strong following a report showing that housing starts last month rose to highest level in nearly six years. Lennar (LEN), which also posted strong earnings, jumped 6 percent. William Lyon Homes rose 4 percent, KB Homes (KBH) and Toll Brothers (TOL) each rose 3.5 percent. Ford (F) shares skidded more than 6 percent after lowering its profit forecast for next year. The company also warned that it may not meet its target for 2015 and 2016. In part, Ford blames the high expenses tied its planned launch of a record number of new vehicles next year. Finally, the movie theater chain AMC Entertainment (AMC) rose 5 percent from its $18 a share IPO price. This is exp

Best Blue Chip Companies To Watch For 2014: 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 WALLSTCHEATSHEET]

  McDonald�� provides highly demanded food items to significant amounts of consumers who enjoy their items around the world. The stock has done very well for investors of the last several years and is now trading at all-time high prices. Earnings and revenue figures have done reasonably well, however, investors have expected a little more from the company. Relative to its strong peers and sector, McDonald’s has been a performance leader, year-to-date. Look for McDonald’s to continue to OUTPERFORM.

• [By Paul Ausick]

  Another Dow stock that weighed on the index today was McDonald�� Corp. (NYSE: MCD) which posted a loss of 1.2% to close at $94.85. The fast food giant posted lower U.S. same-store sales in January. The company posted a same-store sales gain on better sales in Europe and the rest of the world. Trading volume was roughly 10% above the daily average of around 5.5 million shares traded.

• [By Dan Caplinger]

  Co-CEOs Ronald Shaich and Bill Moreton have been an important part of what's gotten Panera to where it is today. Partnerships with high-quality food and beverage suppliers have helped Panera deliver more of what customers are looking for. Moreover, even though the company hasn't been the first-mover in many of its moves -- it chose the same supplier that McDonald's (NYSE: MCD  ) uses for its gourmet coffee, and Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX  ) first started emphasizing natural and organic food offerings -- Panera has been smart about taking those themes and applying them more specifically to its own business.

Best Blue Chip Companies To Watch 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 Paul Ausick]

  Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) saw short interest rise 2% to 13.87 million shares. About 0.7% of Chevron’s float is now short. Chevron reports fourth-quarter results on Friday and is expected to post earnings per share (EPS) of $2.57 on revenues of $63.14 billion. The EPS estimate is substantially lower than the $3.57 the company posted in the fourth quarter of 2012, even though revenues are more than $2.5 billion higher.

• [By David Smith]

  Massive payments already
  Absolutely not. Harking back to 2011, of the top 25 corporate-tax payers, we see that ExxonMobil easily had first place locked up. Its $27.3 billion in income tax payments made for an effective tax rate of approximately 42%. Chevron (NYSE: CVX  ) was next with $17.4 billion in income taxes paid, for a 43.3% effective rate. And ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP  ) was in third place, its 45.6% effective rate making for tax payments of $10.6 billion. But that wasn't all. In addition to its income taxes, Exxon, for instance, recorded another $70 million-plus in sales taxes and other taxes and duties.

Best Blue Chip Companies To Watch 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 Holly LaFon]

  A: The stock market is a market of individual stocks that represent fractional ownership interests in real businesses. The key to investment success is first and foremost to identify individual, highly durable businesses and then have the discipline to buy them when prices are attractive and the risk/reward trade-off is compelling. We invest in what we understand, continuing to pour over the universe of businesses within our many circles of competence that meet our management, capital allocation, business model, and valuation criteria. Some areas that we believe offer the greatest opportunity in terms of prospective returns include:

  Global market leaders such as Nike (NKE), Colgate-Palmolive (CL) and Philip Morris International (PM) that are beneficiaries of a growing global middle class and consumer culture. The global wealth effect, particularly in developing economies, is a real and very powerful force that should serve as a tailwind for these types of global brands over the long term. Well-managed financial services companies with true franchise value due to the success of their particular products or brand that have the ability and management prowess to build market share over time in a highly fragmented marketplace. Wells Fargo and Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) are representative examples in this category. The depth of the recent financial crisis is well known. What is less understood is that certain market leaders used the downturn to dramatically strengthen their capital base and significantly grow their market share at the expense of weaker competitors. Certain health care-related businesses such as UnitedHealth Group and Laboratory Corporation of America that stand to benefit from growing health care spending by aging populations around the world. Workhorse technology companies such as Texas Instruments (TXN), Microsoft (MSFT) and Google that are market leaders with durable competitive moats and that also offer an attractive risk/reward proposition at