Top 10 Blue Chip Stocks To Watch For 2014

Until about 2 p.m. EST, it looked like just another day in the market. But two hours before the closing bell rang in the weekend, a flurry of selling began, driving the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI  ) down 208 points, or 1.4%, to end at 15,115. Pfizer's (NYSE: PFE  ) stock led blue chips lower, as Wall Street panicked, presuming the Fed would taper its stimulus efforts after business activity jumped in May.

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC  ) ended as the top stock in the Dow, adding 0.3% on news that the chip maker would power Samsung's upcoming 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab 3. Not only is it great for Intel to align itself with a market leader in an up-and-coming tablet market, but the company is also stealing business from a rival. ARM Holdings�was formerly the exclusive manufacturer of chips in Samsung-powered devices.�

Alcoa (NYSE: AA  ) shares barely stayed in the black on Friday, tacking on 0.1%. However, on a day like today, when 28 of the 30 stocks in the Dow fell, maintaining small gains isn't so shabby. Investors were encouraged by confidence from Chicago's manufacturing industry, as the Windy City's purchasing managers' index registered at 58.7 today, far higher than the reading economists expected.

5 Best Consumer Stocks To Watch For 2015: 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 Paul Ausick]

  A fourth DJIA component, McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD) weighed on the DJIA today, trading down on a weak same-store sales report for November. Even Mickey D’s stock experienced lighter volume today, trading only about 80% of its daily average of 5.1 million shares. The stock closed at $95.70 on Monday, down 1.14% in a 52-week range of $86.81 to $103.70.

Top 10 Blue Chip Stocks To Watch 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 Carroll]

  Fellow tech stock IBM (NYSE: IBM  ) isn't having such a good day: Big Blue's shares have fallen 1.5% to rank among the top Dow laggards. The company is looking to cut costs by cutting employees, particularly after a worse-than-expected first quarter sunk the firm's stock by nearly 8% in one day back in April. The firm is planning to spend up to $1 billion on the cuts, which began today and could encompass up to 8,000 workers around the globe.

• [By Dan Newman]

  Former�executive Irving Wladawsky-Berger writes on another example of creating value versus capturing value internally at�IBM� (NYSE: IBM  ) :

Top 10 Blue Chip Stocks 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 Ted Cooper]

  Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM  ) returned 146% in stock price increases and dividends over the last five years. That's an average of nearly 30% per year. Clearly, investors who owned Philip Morris for any significant length of time during the last five years made out pretty well. Unfortunately, two new developments have emerged to make future returns less certain. All Philip Morris investors need to know about these two things before deciding whether to hold or sell their stock.

• [By Laura Brodbeck]

  Thursday

  Earnings Expected From: UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE: UNH), Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ), PrivateBancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ: PVTB), PPG Industries, Inc. (NYSE: PPG), Philip Morris International Inc (NYSE: PM), Nokia Corporation (NYSE: NOK), Peabody Energy Corporation (NYSE: BTU), Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG), Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG) Economic Releases Expected: Chinese GDP, Chinese industrial production, Chinese retail sales, US industrial production, US housing starts, US building permits

  Friday

• [By Maxx Chatsko]

  However, you would be hard-pressed to find any connection between falling smoking prevalence and share performance at Reynolds American (NYSE: RAI  ) , Lorriland (NYSE: LO  ) , Phillip Morris (NYSE: PM  ) , and Altria (NYSE: MO  ) . These companies are some of the best performers in the past decade. In fact, Altria is the best-performing stock of the last half-century!

Top 10 Blue Chip Stocks To Watch 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 James Well]

  Analysts��Consensus Position on Pfizer
  
  Thirteen analysts including those at TheStreet, Thomson Reuters/Verus, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Barclays Capital, Morgan Stanley and Argus Research are optimistic about the performance of Pfizer going forward and, hence, reiterated a consensus buy recommendation at an average target price of $31.78 per share. Last Wednesday, analysts at Goldman Sachs removed Pfizer from Goldman�� conviction buy list (CL) where Pfizer has been since Aug. 9, 2011, and placed it on the buy list but raised its price target from $34 to $35 per share. Jami Rubin, an analyst with Goldman Sachs, claimed that Pfizer has gone up by 82.5% since being added to the CL as against 53.9% for the S&P 500 during the period and, therefore, there was the need to replace Pfizer with AbbVie at a price target of $60 because they claimed AbbVie has greater upside at this time.

• [By Monica Gerson]

  Colgate-Palmolive Co (NYSE: CL) is expected to report its Q3 earnings at $0.73 per share on revenue of $4.46 billion.

  Precision Castparts (NYSE: PCP) is projected to report its Q2 earnings at $2.83 per share on revenue of $2.36 billion.

• [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.

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  Shares of Procter & Gamble have gained 0.1% to $81.44 at 2:06 p.m. today, while Unilever (UL) has risen 0.6% to $43.96, Colgate-Palmolive (CL) is little changed at $65.65 and Kimberly-Clark (KMB) has advanced 0.5% to $111.31.

Top 10 Blue Chip Stocks 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 Justin Loiseau]

  Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL  ) developer website has been hacked, according to a message displayed on Apple's online developer portal. The site has been offline since last Thursday, when "an intruder" attempted to access personal information, according to the company.

Top 10 Blue Chip Stocks 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 Claudia Assis]

  Major oil companies were mixed, with shares of Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) �down 0.2%. Shares of Chevron Corp. (CVX) �and ConocoPhillips (COP) �rose 0.3% each.

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  It was a good news, bad news kind of day for Chevron (CVX) yesterday, after it told investors that it would meet guidance for the third quarter but that its profit would plunge 31% from a year ago during the fourth.

  Reuters

  Unlike last year, when Chevron’s refining business was a drag on earnings while its so-called upstream business fired on all cylinders, now refining is providing the boost. That’s good news for Exxon Mobil (XOM) and refiners, says Morgan Stanley’s Evan Calio and Manav Gupta. They explain:

  We believe capture rates [how much of the difference between the cost of oil and refined products a company can earn. Ed. ] troughed in 3Q13 and most US refiners will show a quarter-over-quarter improvement as differentials were widening and the WTI curve moved to contango from backwardation. Positive refining revisions will positively impact [Exxon Mobil] more than [Chevron], as�[Exxon Mobil] has significantly more absolute N. American refining capacity. Marketing margins [the margins from selling the finished product to the retail market. Ed.] also improved 17% q/q and 32% q/q on [West Coast] and [Gulf Coast] respectively, a positive indicator for refiners with retail operation [(Marathon Petroleum (MPC), Tesoro (TSO), Phillips 66 (PSX), Western Refining (WNR) & Delek US (DK))].

  Shares of Chevron have dropped 2% to $1220.77, while Exxon Mobil has fallen 0.4% to $99.37, Marathon Petroleum has dipped 0.3% to $90.79, Tesoro has declined 1.3% to $57.23, Western Refining has slipped 1.2% to $40.79 and Delek US has dropped 1.7% to $33.31. Phillips 66 is little changed at $78.15.

• [By Dan Caplinger]

  Drilling down on individual sectors, though, the impact of strengthening energy prices could point to a recovery for the sector. Dow energy giants ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM  ) and Chevron (NYSE: CVX  ) are less sensitive to changing conditions in the energy sector, as both are integrated companies whose underlying segments often cancel each other out in whole-company results. For instance, when oil prices have fallen in the recent past, Exxon and Chevron would see declining revenue from their exploration and production segments but rising profit in their refining operations. The companies are more sensitive to factors like production volume -- Chevron has done a better job than Exxon of finding new prospects and promising oil-field plays to replace lost production at aging wells.

Top 10 Blue Chip Stocks To Watch 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 Jon C. Ogg]

  Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) was the big DJIA gainer, and it being the largest DJIA stock by weighting made all the difference in the world. Its stock was up 4.1% at $231.00 in the final minutes before the closing bell. The gains of AmEx were the big driving force here, and Visa’s nearly 9% weighting in the DJIA makes it three times more dominant than the average DJIA stock.

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  A week of calm turned stormy for the major stock indexes, as American Express (AXP),�Boeing�(BA), Visa (V), Noble Corp. (NE) and Johnson Controls (JCI) tumbled.

• [By Steven Russolillo]

  Visa(V) is the only Dow component that currently has a stock price above $200. Eight companies have stock prices above $100 as of Thursday’s close.

• [By Sean Williams, Travis Hoium, and Alex Planes]

  In that spirit, we three Fools have banded together to find the market's best and worst stocks, which we'll rate on�The Motley Fool's CAPS�system as outperformers or underperformers. We'll be accountable for every pick based on the sum of our knowledge and the balance of our decisions. Today, we'll be discussing Visa (NYSE: V  ) , the world's largest electronic payment processing network.