Below is a ranking of Dow 30 (DJIA) stocks based on average Wall Street analyst ratings. Each analyst rating is assigned a number ranging from 1 to 5, with 1 being the highest rating (STRONG BUY) and 5 being the lowest rating (STRONG SELL). Then the average is calculated to represent the overall rating of a stock.
Ranking | Company (Ticker) | Average Rating Value | Average Rating 1 Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) 1.60 Strong Buy 2 United Technologies Corporation (NYSE:UTX) 1.63 Strong Buy 3 Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) 1.65 Strong Buy
4 The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) 1.75 Strong Buy 5 Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) 1.88 Buy 6 Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) 1.89 Buy 7 Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) 1.90 Buy 8 McDonald's Corporation (NYSE:MCD) 1.91 Buy 9 Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) 1.91 Buy 10 JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) 1.95 Buy 11 Bank of America Corporation (NYSE:BAC) 1.95 Buy 12 Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) 1.97 Buy 13 Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) 1.97 Buy 14 International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) 2.00 Buy 15 Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) 2.05 Buy 16 The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG) 2.06 Buy 17 The Travelers Companies, Inc. (NYSE:TRV) 2.11 Buy 18 The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD) 2.17 Buy 19 Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) 2.18 Buy 20 3M Company (NYSE:MMM) 2.19 Buy 21 AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) 2.21 Buy 22 Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE:KFT) 2.25 Buy 23 E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company (NYSE:DD) 2.43 Buy 24 General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) 2.47 Buy 25 Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) 2.53 Buy 26 American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) 2.57 Buy 27 The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) 2.58 Buy 28 Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) 2.81 Neutral 29 Alcoa Inc. (NYSE:AA) 2.89 Neutral 30 The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA) 2.92 Neutral
Hardee's famous 2/3-pound Monster Thickburger is just the sort of delicacy someone like me might fear: It's made of two 1/3-pound beef patties, four strips of bacon and three slices of American cheese on a mayonnaise-coated sesame seed bun. It weighs in at 1,420 calories and 43 grams of saturated fat -- more than double the daily recommendation for an adult. It's obscene. But do I think we need to be protected from Hardee's Monster Thickburger and other foods of its ilk?
Carl Kasell's career with National Public Radio almost ended before it started.
The newscaster developed vocal polyps about 30 years ago. His doctor recommended surgery. The post-operative therapy of 30-days of total silence was especially difficult for the native of Goldsboro, N.C., to endure, but he had no other choice. "That's when I saw my career flashing before my eyes," Kasell tells DailyFinance, adding that he has maintained his voice because "I have a good ear, nose and throat doctor."
You accidentally filet your finger with your sharpest kitchen knife. Your daughter breaks her arm at a gymnastics meet. Or the fool who's texting while driving totals your car -- with you in it. At some point in life, chances are you'll be taking a trip to the emergency room. Some 120 million Americans do every year. And it won't be a picnic. Before seeing a doctor, expect to wait more than 55 minutes, the average ER wait time across the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Show up on a busy night or weekend and the wait could drag on for several hours.
There are plenty of ER horror stories, like the case of 49-year-old Illinois resident Beatrice Vance who arrived at the hospital complaining of chest pains, only to be found dead two hours later, still in a waiting room chair. But this doesn't happen every day. DailyFinance spoke with emergency-room physicians across the country to find out what moves patients can make to prevent experiencing a horror story of their own.
It's been hard times for the U.S. economy. The unemployment rate essentially doubled as the economy contracted, making the recession from 2007 to 2009 the longest and worst since the 1930s.
But while there are long term and structural factors that are likely to weigh on economic growth in the quarters ahead, the outlook isn't all bad. Investors would be remiss if they did not consider certain "rays of light," or factors that are working in the economy's favor. Here are the major positives heading into 2010:
How was Black Friday for retailers? It depends on who's counting.
ShopperTrack, which tracks store sales, reports that spending on the day after Thanksgiving was up 0.5% to $10.66 billion. The distribution of the improvement around the country was mixed, and some regions did poorly. In the West, sales rose 4.7%, but in the Northeast they were down 4.9%.
The brain is an amazing thing. "It consumes less power than a light bulb and occupies less space than a two-liter bottle of soda," writes Dharmendra S. Modha, manager of cognitive computing at IBM (IBM), in his blog. Yet it performs functions no computer can -- many of them quite basic. Think of those blurry, squiggly jumbles of letters and numbers that web sites use to make sure they're dealing with a human being. Your brain can sense, perceive, reason, and coordinate different functions in a constantly changing environment; it can handle ambiguity and abstraction.
There's not an app for that -- yet. But computer scientists at IBM have a longterm goal of achieving cognitive computing, a mindlike artificial intelligence, allowing computers to handle far more complex systems, such as finding patterns throughout the Web, the way humans can pick out a face from a crowd.
Despite ongoing economic weakness and now a potential sovereign default (Dubai), the major market equity averages closed the week generally unchanged. The Treasury market benefited the most from the reality that risks remain abundant and, in a flight to safety, capital poured into this sector. The dollar continued its descent into hell while supporting a large number of market segments, primarily commodities and especially gold.
Most people who have been reading the news lately are aware that the U.S. Dollar’s perception as a sound currency is being attacked on all sides thanks to complaints about deficits, debts, and other U.S. government shenanigans.
Of course it’s easy to trash the government you know, but how are foreign governments doing at managing their currencies?
Are they doing a better job at preserving value for those holding their bonds or cash, or is it a race to the bottom? After all, paper … [visit site to read more]
This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.
Doug Kass (The Street.com): The animal spirits, November 27, 2009.
Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others, and despite the renewed and more plentiful calls for S&P 1200 by year-end, it might be time to anticipate a reversal of fortune - an unpopular, unimaginable and unexpected outsized market decline.
Here at “A Dash” we try to identify the best experts on any subject. Since we are free to position our clients in any way, we are consumers of news and analysis. So are you.
While I manage client portfolios in real time, my writing is after hours. I am not trying to advise people with short-term trading horizons. Our TCA-ETF approach (still bullish) has a three-week time horizon. Our program for long-term investors has an even longer time frame.
I was a guest on two shows, BBC News’ “World News Today” and Fox Business News’ “Cavuto,” where I discussed the fallout from news that Dubai will delay repayments on $60 billion of debt from its investment company, Dubai World (videos embedded below).
As I see it, the turmoil that has occurred in global markets over the past 48 hours essentially confirms that investors in risky asset classes have not made allowances for surprises - or even predictable events. In fact, it seems pretty … [visit site to read more]
While Iceland’s transformation from fishing nation to financial powerhouse - and back - became a potent symbol of the banking boom and bust of the past few years, the Middle Eastern emirate of Dubai was where the global property bubble was taken to its glitziest extreme.
Without the oil reserves of many of their neighbours, Dubai’s rulers hatched a hubristic plan to turn their city-state in the sand into a glamorous playground for the rich, enthusiastically bankrolled by western … [visit site to read more]
I'm the first to harangue against 
Carl Kasell's career with National Public Radio almost ended before it started.
You accidentally filet your finger with your sharpest kitchen knife. Your daughter breaks her arm at a gymnastics meet. Or the fool who's texting while driving totals your car -- with you in it. At some point in life, chances are you'll be taking a trip to the emergency room. Some 120 million Americans do every year. And it won't be a picnic. Before seeing a doctor, expect to wait more than 55 minutes, the average ER wait time across the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Show up on a busy night or weekend and the wait could drag on for several hours. 
It's been hard times for the U.S. economy. The unemployment rate essentially doubled as the economy contracted, making the recession from 2007 to 2009 the longest and worst since the 1930s. 
How was Black Friday for retailers? It depends on who's counting.
The brain is an amazing thing. "It consumes less power than a light bulb and occupies less space than a two-liter bottle of soda," writes 
