by Kelley Wright, editor Investment Quality Trends
We believe that high-quality stocks purchased at historically
low-price-to-high-yield offers the best potential for downside
protection and upside appreciation.
Whether you are looking to
build a portfolio from scratch, are partially invested and looking to
add new positions, or fully invested and in need of some affirmation
and hand holding, The Timely Ten represents our top ten
recommendations.
The Timely Ten consists of Undervalued stocks that show exemplary
long-term dividend growth, a P/E ratio of 15 or less and technical
characteristics that suggests the potential for imminent capital
appreciation.
We particularly
focus on metrics that are less affected by cyclicality; most
specifically the cash dividend and the dividend trend.
For
the long-term health and viability of a company's dividend, it is
important that the company builds flexibility into the structure of
their business to be able to withstand the inevitable downturns that
occur within the normal course of the business cycle.
Two
examples of a flexible structure are a manageable level of debt and a
payout ratio (the percentage of earnings that are paid to the
shareholders as dividends) that will not endanger the dividend in the
event earnings are impacted by poor macro-economic conditions.
We
continue to suggest that our tried and true screens of identifying high
quality and good current value, such as limiting considerations to
undervalued companies with a modest level of long-term-debt-to-equity
will continue to provide long-term real total returns.
Our latest Timely Ten selections are:
CVS Caremark (
CVS) -- yielding 1.3%
Chevron Corp. (
CVX) -- yielding 3.3%
Union Pacific (
UNP) - yielding 2.2%
Coca-Cola (
KO) - yielding 2.7%
McDonald's (
MCD) -- yielding 3.5%
Air Products & Chemicals (
APD) -- yielding 3.1%
Nike (
NKE) - yielding 1.7%
United Technologies (
UTX) -- yielding 2.7%
Disney (
DIS) - yielding 1.5%
Occidental Petroleum (
OXY) -- yielding 2.8%