Top 5 Blue Chip Companies To Buy For 2014

Kiplinger's Personal Finance writer Carolyn Bigda looks at a trio of favored blue chip stocks, each providing investors with yields above 5%.

Steve Halpern: We are here today with Carolyn Bigda of Kiplinger's Personal Finance. How are you doing, Carolyn?

Carolyn Bigda: I am fine, thank you.

Steve Halpern: In your recent article for Kiplinger's, which just hit the newsstands this week, you look at what you call Steady Eddie stocks, long-term dividend payers, and for this article, you focus on stocks yielding 5% or more. First off, you look at AT&T (T). Could you explain what the attraction behind that idea is?

Carolyn Bigda: Sure. AT&T is paying just north of 5%, which is a pretty big yield for telecom, and the company—as you said earlier—these are Steady Eddies.

And the company has raised its dividend consecutively for 29 years, which is a pretty good record. You have a pretty reliable dividend payer with a very attractive yield.

Top 5 Construction Companies To Buy 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 Patrick M. Sheridan]

  The fight for higher wages has been a recent theme across the retail and fast-food industries. McDonald's (MCD) workers and union organizers have staged strikes, even taking protests to the annual shareholder meeting last month.

Top 5 Blue Chip Companies 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 Associated Press]

  The Dow Jones industrial average fell 354 points, or 2.3 percent, Thursday to close at 14,758. Shares of ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM  ) and Chevron� (NYSE: CVX  ) , both Dow components, fell by more than 2 percent. The euro slipped to $1.3197 from $1.3274 in New York a day earlier. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note rose to its highest level since August 2011.

• [By Dan Burrows]

  Between that and the dividend, new money can afford to wait for IT spending — and CSCO — to bounce back.

  #6: Chevron (CVX)

  Dividend Yield: 3.2%
  YTD Performance: +14%

• [By Dan Caplinger]

  Energy giants ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM  ) and Chevron (NYSE: CVX  ) have both declined about half a percent after OPEC announced that it would keep its cap on oil output at its current level of 30 million barrels per day. Yet arguably more important is the cartel's forecasts of a continued fall in demand for OPEC crude, largely owing to the big rise in North American production stemming from unconventional sources like shale plays and Canada's oil sands. For now, at least, OPEC's influence on the overall oil market has diminished significantly, and that's at least some relief for consumers who are already paying more at the pump than they'd like.

• [By Dan Carroll]

  Among blue-chip stocks, oil majors have surged higher. ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM  ) shares have jumped 1.2% to rank among the top Dow leaders, and fellow firm Chevron (NYSE: CVX  ) has seen its stock rise 1.6%. Chevron got a boost today when a Canadian court turned away a $19 billion Ecuadorian claim against the company that stems from alleged pollution in the 1970s and '80s. While that's one less headache for Chevron, Exxon has run into trouble despite its stock's surge: The company's dealing with a small oil leak in Missouri from the same pipeline that leaked in Arkansas in March. While the spill is minuscule, it's another PR hit for a company that could use some good news.

Top 5 Blue Chip Companies 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 Lawrence Meyers]

  Visa (V) is a stock to buy now because its one part of a duopoly.

  Say all you want about Discover Financial (DFS) and American Express (AXP), but MasterCard (MA) and Visa own the vast majority of the credit card world and always will. Discover came along years ago and hasn�� done much to penetrate the outer walls of its competitors. And we always want to own companies that dominate their space.

• [By DAILYFINANCE]

  Gary Malerba/AP Neiman Marcus says 1.1 million debit and credit cards used at its stores may have been compromised in a security breach last year. The high-end retailer said Visa (V), MasterCard (MA) and Discover (DFS) have found 2,400 Neiman Marcus and Last Call customer cards that were used fraudulently. Last Call is Neiman Marcus' clearance chain. Neiman Marcus says it is notifying all customers who shopped in its stores in 2013 and offering them a free year of credit monitoring and identity-theft protection. Malicious software installed in Neiman Marcus' system attempted to take customer card information from July 16 to Oct. 30, the company said. The malicious software has been disabled. Neiman Marcus Group Ltd. reiterated in a post on its website Wednesday night that social security numbers and birth dates weren't stolen and customers who shopped online weren't affected. Customers that use its private Neiman Marcus credit cards were also not affected. The Dallas-based company said the investigation is ongoing. The company learned that malicious software was installed to its system on Jan. 1, after a forensics company discovered it. It informed federal law enforcement agencies and began working with the U.S. Secret Service and payment processors. Target (TGT) also suffered a security breach, during the holiday shopping season. Hackers stole about 40 million debit and credit card numbers. Personal information, including names, email addresses, phone numbers and home addresses of as many as 70 million customers was also stolen. Neiman Marcus said it has no knowledge of a connection between the two security breaches. A report published earlier this month by iSight Partners, a global cyber intelligence firm that works with the U.S. Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security, said the security breach that hit Target appears to have been part of a broader and highly sophisticated scam that potentially affected a large number of retailers.

Top 5 Blue Chip Companies 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 WALLSTCHEATSHEET]

  IBM is a technology company that provides valuable and essential products and services to consumers and companies around the world. The stock has been on a strong run extending back several years but has been in consolidation as of late. Over the last four quarters, earnings have been increasing while revenue figures have been decreasing, overall producing mixed feelings among investors. Relative to its peers and sector, IBM has been a poor year-to-date performer. WAIT AND SEE what IBM does in coming quarters.

• [By Alex Planes]

  Exactly 36 years after it was created, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI  ) made a number of great changes -- or changes that would have been great, if the Dow's overseers had stuck to their guns. On May 26, 1932, seven new stocks joined the Dow. Only one has remained part of the index ever since: Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG  ) . Two others -- Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO  ) and IBM (NYSE: IBM  ) -- were removed far too soon.

• [By Tom Taulli]

  True, CSOD has competition. But most of the players are mega companies like Oracle (ORCL) and IBM (IBM), which are far from nimble. Besides, the company has the advantage of being solely focused on talent management and its platform is available for companies of all sizes.

• [By Trustamind]

  Warren Buffett surprised everyone when he announced that Berkshire (BRK.A) (BRK.B) bought 5.5% shares of IBM (IBM) last November. No matter how bizarre it looks, there was sound logic behind Buffett�� decision, as he explained in his interview with CNN.