Best Blue Chip Companies To Buy Right Now

Wall Street seemed happy to get the second quarter -- especially the month of June -- behind it on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI  ) was up more than 150 points for much of the day after manufacturing data from the U.S. and Japan indicated that global industry is rebounding. Bullish data alone often drives equities higher, but investors anxiously awaiting the beginning of earnings season next week may also contribute to some speculative gains this week. By day's end, the Dow had risen 65 points, or 0.4%, ending at 14,974.

The biggest blue chip beneficiary of Monday's manufacturing rally was United Technologies (NYSE: UTX  ) , which added nearly 2%. Sentiment from Japan's biggest industrials shifted from largely negative to mildly optimistic in June, and that important swing was mirrored in the U.S., where manufacturing activity swung from contraction to expansion.

Property and casualty insurance giant Travelers (NYSE: TRV  ) ended as the second-biggest Dow gainer, tacking on 1.5%. There wasn't any major catalyst behind today's gains, but shares sure don't look too bad at these levels. The stock seems cheap: It trades at just over 10 times forward earnings, and pays a 2.5% dividend -- the same yield as 10-year Treasury notes.

Top 10 Transportation Stocks To Invest In Right Now: 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 Michael Flannelly]

  Early on Monday, analysts at Global Equities Research reiterated their bullish rating on Apple Inc. (AAPL) and raised the tech giant’s price target, citing extremely strong secular growth trends as a reason for the optimistic outlook.

  The analysts rate AAPL as “Overweight” and see shares reaching $725, up from the previous price target of $650. This new price target suggests about a 50% upside from Friday’s closing price of $482.35.

  Because sales of the iPhone 5s have been extremely strong and the 64 bit microchips are giving Apple a 12-15 month lead on Android devices, Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry sees big things for the Cupertino, California-based company. Also, he expects sales the iPhone 5c to pick up, with the colorful options increasingly piquing the interest of younger consumers.

  Apple shares were down $3.54, or 0.73%, during pre-market trading on Monday. The stock is down 9.29% year-to-date.

Best Blue Chip Companies To Buy Right Now: 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 Melvin Backman]

  Reynolds American (RAI) fell 2.6% in early trading, and Lorillard (LO), which Reynolds agreed to buy last week, is down 2%. Philip Morris (PM) shares fell nearly 1%, and Altria Group (MO) was down about 1.5%.

• [By Fede Zaldua]

  Imperial trades cheaply and pays a great, sustainable and for-ever-growing 4.5% cash dividend yield. The company's 2014 10.4 times P/E multiple represents a 40% discount to what most European consumer staples sell for. Besides, the owner of brands such as Davidoff and Gauloises, trades at a much more conservative level than its direct tobacco peers. Philip Morris International (PM) and British American Tobacco (BTI) sell for 2014 15 and 14.2 times earnings, respectively.

• [By Roberto Pedone]

  One stock that insiders are buying up a large amount of here is Philip Morris International (PM), which manufactures and sells cigarettes and other tobacco products in markets outside the U.S. Insiders are buying this stock into modest strength, since shares are up 5.5% so far in 2013.

  Philip Morris International has a market cap of $143 billion and an enterprise value of $168 billion. This stock trades at a reasonable valuation, with a trailing price-to-earnings of 17.25 and a forward price-to-earnings of 14.6. Its estimated growth rate for this year is 4.2%, and for next year it's pegged at 11.8%. This is not a cash-rich company, since the total cash position on its balance sheet is $3.59 billion and its total debt is $25.50 billion. This stock currently sports a dividend yield of 3.8%.

  A director just bought 123,500 shares, or about $11.01 million worth of stock, at $89.15 per share.

  From a technical perspective, PM is currently trending below both its 50-day and 200-day moving averages, which is bearish. This stock has been downtrending over the last two months and change, with shares dropping from its high of $95.38 to its recent low of $85.21 a share. During that move, shares of PM have been mostly making lower highs and lower lows, which is bearish technical price action.

  If you're bullish on PM, then I would look for long-biased trades as long as this stock is trending above some near-term support at $87.65 to $87 and then once it takes out its 200-day at $88.72 and its 50-day at $89.25 a share with high volume. Look for a sustained move or close above those levels with volume that hits near or above its three-month average action of 5.10 million shares. If we get that move soon, then PM will set up to re-test or possibly take out its next major overhead resistance levels at $91.40 to $92.26 a share. Any high-volume move above those levels will then put $94 to $95 into range for shares of PM.

   

• [By Bill Maurer]

  Philip Morris (PM):

  Philip Morris saw a surprise short interest drop of more than 20% during the final two weeks of March. More than 2.5 million of the roughly 12.2 million shares short were covered, stopping the recent rise in short interest that you can see in the chart below.

Best Blue Chip Companies To Buy Right Now: 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 Travis Hoium]

  Colgate-Palmolive
  Toothpaste and toothbrushes may not be exciting business, but it's consistent and consumers tend to develop habits they rarely break. Once they find a toothpaste brand they like, it could be years before they try another one. That leads to another incredibly consistent business for Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL  ) , one that has paid back investors with a dividend since 1895. �

• [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 Jon C. Ogg]

  Colgate-Palmolive Co. (NYSE: CL) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight and the price target is now $68 (versus a $59.93 close) at Morgan Stanley.

Best Blue Chip Companies To Buy Right Now: 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 Caplinger]

  IBM (NYSE: IBM  ) , though, fell 0.6%, which made it the biggest loser in the Dow on a percentage basis. As numerous Fool contributors have noted earlier today, Oracle scored a big win in its challenge to IBM's strategy of dominating the Big Data market, when a study showed that Oracle's technology performed better than IBM's. As troubling as that is for Big Blue, it ordinarily wouldn't have a big impact on the broader stock market. But because IBM's share price is so high, it has a disproportionately heavy weighting in the price-weighted Dow. As a result, if IBM can't resolve its problems, a stock decline could make it very hard for the Dow to advance overall.

• [By MONEYMORNING.COM]

  On Tuesday afternoon, Apple announced a "landmark partnership" with International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM). Together, the two companies aim to gain foothold in segments of the corporate world like healthcare, retail, and transportation. And they intend to use mobile to do it.