Stocks soared today as the monthly jobs report came in above expectations. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI ) finished up 207 points, or 1.4%, to close the week at 15,248.
The Labor Department reported that 175,000 jobs were added in May, better than consensus projections at 159,000. However, the jobs report was not stellar across the board as private-sector jobs only beat estimates by 3,000, and the unemployment rate ticked to 7.6% from 7.5% in April. The Labor Department also revised down its estimate of jobs created in April from 165,000 to 149,000. Given the negatives in the report, the market's reaction seems to be a bit exaggerated.
Boeing (NYSE: BA ) was the biggest winner out of the blue chips, gaining 2.7%, as the aerospace maker was a part of a $4 billion deal announced today that includes Rolls-Royce and Singapore Airlines. According to the agreement, Rolls Royce will provide engines for 50 Boeing 787 jets. The aerospace giant shares have continued to move higher now that its Dreamliner battery fire problems have been resolved. Boeing hit a five-year high today, and shares are up 35% this year.
Top 5 Blue Chip Stocks To Buy 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 Evan Niu, CFA]
Even Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) has now entered the small-sized tablet market with the iPad Mini, acknowledging the growing consumer preference toward smaller form factors (and lower price points). Google I/O is now in the rearview mirror, and many investors were expecting Big G to unveil a second-generation Nexus 7 at the developer conference, to no avail.
Top 5 Blue Chip Stocks To Buy Right Now: 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 MONEYMORNING.COM]
Bloomberg writer Matt Townsend says Apple is working on the NXP-powered "wallet" function with MasterCard Inc. (NYSE: MA) and Visa Inc. (NYSE: V).
Top 5 Services Companies To Buy For 2015: 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 GuruFocus]
Philip Morris International Inc. (PM) Reached the 52-Week Low of $80.78
The prices of Philip Morris International Inc. (PM) shares have declined to close to the 52-week low of $80.78, which is 16.5% off the 52-week high of $96.73. Philip Morris International Inc. is owned by 33 Gurus we are tracking. Among them, 17 have added to their positions during the past quarter. Seven reduced their positions. Philip Morris International Inc. is a Virginia holding company first incorporated in 1987. Philip Morris International Inc. has a market cap of $129.42 billion; its shares were traded at around $80.78 with a P/E ratio of 15.20 and P/S ratio of 1.70. The dividend yield of Philip Morris International Inc. stocks is 4.40%. Philip Morris International Inc. had an annual average earnings growth of 14.50% over the past five years.
- [By Editor , Dividend Growth Investor]
Philip Morris (PM), through its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells cigarettes and other tobacco products. The company has paid and consistently increased dividends every year since being spun-off from Altria Group (MO) in 2008. The last dividend increase was in September 2013, when the Board of Directors approved a 10.60% dividend increase in the quarterly distribution to 94 cents/share.
Top 5 Blue Chip Stocks 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 Travis Hoium]
Big oil companies and refiners ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM ) and Chevron (NYSE: CVX ) will both report earnings in the next two days, and they'll likely face the same challenges as Phillips 66. The difference is that they have much more exposure to oil exploration, which is doing quite well on rising oil prices. This is one of the advantages of investing in big oil companies: They have exposure to both the good and the bad in the market.
Top 5 Blue Chip Stocks 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 Philip Springer]
What’s this week’s big story for investors?
Candidate #1: RadioShack (NYSE: RSH) said it will close up to 1,100 of its nearly 5,200 US stores amid widening losses. The company also announced that revenue in the fourth quarter of 2013 fell 20 percent from year-earlier levels.
It doesn’t matter whether the latest announcement is in addition to or merely an expansion of the company’s Feb. 5 statement that it would close 500 stores. That, in turn, shortly followed the beleaguered company’s $4 million expenditure for a widely praised but clearly ill-timed 30-second ad during the Super Bowl.
Also this week, Radio Shack agreed to pay its top executives “retention” bonuses, saying their skills are critical to the company�� comeback plan. CEO Joe Magnacca will get a $500,000 payment, while other executives will receive $187,500 to $275,000.
The stock currently trades around $2, down from its 1999 peak of $61.
No, that’s not the week’s big story. But it was too good to ignore.
Candidate #2: The current bull market celebrates its fifth birthday this week, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 delivering a total return of about 175 percent during that time.
Since 1921, the median bull market has been 50 months long and has delivered 115 percent in price appreciation. So this market is older and better than most. Still, the conditions aren’t yet present to suggest the end is near. Indeed, Wednesday’s advance, the best of the year to date, was exceptional for both its breadth and heavy volume.
The five-year anniversary also means that stocks, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, closed-end funds and so on will boast very good five-year returns. Don’t be overly impressed. Reason: Almost everybody will be a winner. (Other than Radio Shack.) But you should dig deeper: Comparisons will be useful to sort out leaders and laggards for potential investme - [By Alex Planes]
The era of personal computing didn't really begin when IBM (NYSE: IBM ) launched the PC in 1981. It began four years earlier, on April 16, 1977, when more than 12,000 computer enthusiasts flooded into the San Francisco Civic Auditorium to take part in the first West Coast Computer Faire. One booth in prime convention entry-hall space was staffed by a young and enthusiastic pair of guys both named Steve, exhibiting a machine that would become the gateway into technology for millions of children and young adults during the following decade: the Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) II.
- [By Jessica Alling]
The biggest drag this morning is IBM (NYSE: IBM ) , down 0.8%. As the top stock in the index, its modest decline can have a much bigger impact on the index than some would think. Big Blue investors may be hitting the pause button as they learn that the company's latest SDK Java Technology Edition software leaves many of its customers' servers vulnerable to cyberattacks by hackers. This news comes from Security Explorations and Kaspersky Lab researchers, which sent the company an open letter about the issue on Monday.
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