Monday, October 20, 2014

Hot Blue Chip Companies To Invest In 2014

LONDON -- One of Warren Buffett's famous investing sayings is "Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful" -- or, in other words, sell when others are buying and buy when they're selling.

But we might expect Foolish investors to know that, and looking at what Fools have been buying recently might well provide us with some ideas for good investments.

So, in this series of articles, we're going to look at what customers of The Motley Fool ShareDealing Service have been buying in the past week or so and what might have made them decide to do so.

A stereotypical blue chip
Unilever� (LSE: ULVR  ) (NYSE: UL  ) is a stereotypical blue-chip company -- it has an international reputation for quality and reliability, and has proved its ability to operate profitably, despite the vicissitudes of the stock market, to deliver rewards to its shareholders over the long term.

Unilever sells brands that everyone knows and that command consumer confidence and loyalty. It counts Marmite, PG Tips, Persil, Walls, Cif, Flora, Knorr, and Colman's in its stable of more than 400 brand names worldwide. There's even Pot Noodle, a brand many people claim to hate, although the fact that it holds a 49% value share of the "instant hot snack" market suggests otherwise.

Top Tech Companies To Buy Right Now: 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) rose 1.63% for the day to close at $113.51, in a 52-week range of $109.27 to $127.83. WTI prices closed above $100 a barrel yesterday and traded above that level for most of the day today before closing at around $99.90. Share volume was about 7% below the daily average of around 6 million shares traded.

Hot Blue Chip Companies To Invest In 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 Douglas A. McIntyre]

    Some traditional brand powerhouses have lost ground in the Top 100 since 2009. These include BMW, FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) and Colgate-Palmolive Co. (NYSE: CL).

  • [By Dan Burrows]

    Rival Colgate-Palmolive (CL) has different concerns, namely sluggishness in emerging markets where it enjoys commanding market share and derives more than half its revenue.

  • [By Dividends4Life]

    Memberships and Peers: KMB is a member of the S&P 500, a Dividend Aristocrat, a member of the Broad Dividend Achievers��Index and a Dividend Champion. The company's peer group includes: The company's peer group includes: Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) with a 3.1% yield, Colgate-Palmolive Co. (CL) with a 2.3% yield, and Clorox Corporation (CLX) with a 3.4% yield.

  • [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.

Hot Blue Chip Companies To Invest In 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 Ben Levisohn]

    Visa (V) gained 3.1% to $210.81 this week, making it the biggest winner in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Investors seem to have gotten over the risk posed to Visa by Russia.

  • [By Jayson Derrick]

    Analysts at Janney Capital upgraded Visa (NYSE: V) to Buy from Neutral with a price target raised to $240 from a previous $210. Shares gained 1.49 percent, closing at $204.00.

  • [By Travis Hoium]

    One of the best competitive advantages a company can create is built using what's called a network effect. The more users a company has, the more users it attracts, which attracts more users and the cycle continues. Visa (NYSE: V  ) has created one of the best network effects in the world with its massive payment processing system, building a lead over Mastercard (NYSE: MA  ) and American Express (NYSE: AXP  ) , who are the two other big players in the business.

  • [By Selena Maranjian]

    Visa (NYSE: V  ) saw its global brand value surge 46%, to $56 billion. The company is extremely global, operating in more than 200 nations, and it's poised to profit as more and more people and businesses shift from cash transactions to electronic ones. Its presence in emerging markets is also a good thing to see among stock picks, as such economies are growing rapidly -- and for Visa, that means more people beginning to use plastic for purchases. Meanwhile, our recovering economy is leading to an uptick in credit payments. The fast-growing company's forward P/E is 21, well below its five-year average of 41. Visa is far bigger than its rivals, although�MasterCard�is doing particularly well globally.

Hot Blue Chip Companies To Invest In 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 Sneha Shah]

    It has become critical for a major smartphone/handset producer to have a tablet line. The line between large phablets and tablets is getting blurred with large phablets having a screen size approaching that of 7-inch tablets. Nokia is not a niche player targeting one category like BlackBerry (BBRY) or Apple (AAPL). The company plays in all price segments like Samsung. It is extremely important for Nokia to have a tablet product and I have emphasized that point for a long time now. Nokia has tied up its fortunes to MSFT by entering into an agreement to sell its smartphones using Windows OS only. The company has made this strategy a success despite Windows limitations. This has given the management the confidence to enter into the tablet segment using a Windows OS. The wholesale abandoning of Windows RT by major companies also leaves an open field for Nokia. Currently Intel does not have a good, low priced, low powered processor for tablets. So Windows RT is the only decent option for Nokia. The company is also much better at hardware than MSFT and has a reasonable chance of success. Even if it fails, the company does not stand to lose much. It will gain valuable experience in tablets and be able to launch Windows tablets using Intel's new Baytrail processors. If Nokia succeeds, then it will make MSFT even more dependent on Nokia.

  • [By Brian Stoffel]

    Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL  )
    Finally, we have the one stock that really dragged the portfolio down. The interesting thing is that there wasn't any substantial news from Cupertino that would necessitate a 9% drop.

  • [By Alyssa Oursler]

    Pershing Square hedge fund manager Bill Ackman bet on Penney’s turnaround in late 2010, when shares had already fallen to around $25 a piece. He snatched up 18% of JCPenney stock, then stuck Ron Johnson — a former star at Apple (AAPL) and Target (TGT) — at the helm.

Hot Blue Chip Companies To Invest In 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 John Divine]

    Stocks lost ground on Thursday as consumer spending numbers came in below expectations, and institutional investors sold positions ahead of the end of the second quarter. While the S&P 500 Index (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC  ) ended modestly lower, Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ: BBBY  ) , Tenet Healthcare Corp. (NYSE: THC  ) , and Philip Morris International, (NYSE: PM  ) were the day's worst decliners. The S&P 500 itself lost two points, or 0.1%, to end at 1,957.

Hot Blue Chip Companies To Invest In 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 Rick Aristotle Munarriz]

    Alamy Fried chicken and waffles is a staple menu item at countless soul food and comfort food restaurants, but that's not stopping Burger King (BKW) from trying to give the meal a fast-food spin. Burger King is testing a new sandwich in the Northeast that takes the breaded chicken patty used in its Classic Crispy Chicken Sandwich from its King Deals Value Menu and replaces the bun with a split waffle. Burger King's Chicken & Waffle Sandwich isn't as hearty as the meal that it's based on. It's selling for as little as $2.29. But the chain's latest attempt to turn heads with a unique menu item will at least attract curious nibblers if it does decide to broaden the offering across the country. Waffling About Burger King isn't the first popular chain to attempt to reinvent this classic dish. As Nation's Restaurant News points out, last summer, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen (PLKI) offered Chicken Waffle Tenders -- consisting of chicken tenders dipped in a vanilla maple-scented waffle batter, served with a honey maple dipping sauce. DineEquity's (DIN) IHOP did it three years ago by combining its chicken strips with Belgian waffle quarters. Yum! Brands (YUM) tried to breathe new life into its breakfast business last summer by testing a Waffle Taco -- an egg, sausage, and waffle breakfast sandwich. Even if it doesn't succeed -- and some of the early taste tests haven't been very flattering to the chain's new sandwich -- it's at least comforting to see that Burger King isn't just copying McDonald's (MCD) the way that it has for the past couple of years. Burger King followed McDonald's in offering fancy coffee drinks, fresh fruit smoothies, and popcorn chicken. It has gone on to roll out doppelgangers of the Egg McMuffin and McRib sandwiches. In November, it introduced the Big King, which any patron will quickly recognize as a body double to the Big Mac. Then again, it's not as if following McDonald's lead is such a clever idea right now. The world's largest re

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