Top Blue Chip Companies To Own For 2014

You can be sure that the next few weeks will see plenty of activity on Wall Street, as earnings season gets into full swing. While markets eased higher today partially due to Citigroup's�beat, the main reason the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI  ) edged higher Monday was due to the performance of just a few blue chip mainstays. Although 60% of its components actually fell today, the Dow managed to add about 20 points, or 0.1%, to end at 15,484.

The Dow is a price-weighted index, the top nine stocks with the highest share price (not largest market capitalization) account for about 50% of the benchmark's movements on any given day. Boeing (NYSE: BA  ) happens to be the fourth heaviest-weighted blue chip, so its 3.7% jump today helped the average big time. Shareholders breathed a little easier after early investigations indicated that Friday's fire on a Boeing 787 was unrelated to the plane's battery. The company grounded its 787 Dreamliners for a while earlier this year after a January fire proved to originate in the battery.�

Best Construction Material Companies To Own In 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 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.

• [By Chris Hill]

  Shares of Visa (NYSE: V  ) rose to an all-time high on Thursday after the company reported stronger-than-expected second-quarter earnings. Should investors buy Visa, or is MasterCard (NYSE: MA  ) the better bet? In this installment of MarketFoolery, our analysts discuss Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and the future of the payments industry.

Top Blue Chip Companies To Own 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 Alex Planes]

  Originally built by Eckert and Mauchly under their own brand, UNIVAC proved so costly and time-consuming to develop that the duo sold their business to Remington-Rand -- which still operates in the computing industry today as Unisys (NYSE: UIS  ) -- before completing the project. UNIVAC was designed from the ground up for business use rather than scientific calculation, and represented the first real digital threat to IBM's (NYSE: IBM  ) punched-card tabulators, which had been the Census Bureau's preferred number-crunching tools for decades. However, their astronomically high cost -- $750,000 for the eight-ton machine and another $185,000 for the high-speed printer -- kept UNIVAC from becoming a big-business hit, even after it nailed the results of President Dwight Eisenhower's landslide 1952 election victory with only 1% of the vote recorded. That wasn't for lack of trying on Remington Rand's part:

• [By Jessica Alling]

  IBM: Index Busting Machine
  Since IBM (NYSE: IBM  ) is the largest component of the weighted Dow index, its 7% drop this morning following negative reaction to its earnings report caused the index to drop as much as 100 points. It takes a lot of effort from the Dow's other component stocks to overcome that drag, making sense of the current losses even though 25 of the Dow's 30 stocks are in positive territory.

Top Blue Chip Companies To Own 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 Matt Thalman]

  ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM  ) reports on Thursday, while fellow energy stock Chevron (NYSE: CVX  ) pulls in on Friday. For Exxon, the Street wants to see EPS of $1.90 on revenue of $105.54 billion. A year ago, Exxon posted EPS of $1.80 and sales of $127.36 billion. Earnings are thus set to rise, and that's what really matters. The EPS estimate of $1.90 is an average of 21 analysts' opinions, with the high end at $2.05 per share and the low end coming in at $1.63. The expected 17.1% year-over-year revenue drop for Q2 isn't a great sign, and it could pose a big problem if Exxon misses expectations. �

• [By Robert Rapier]

  Seadrill Partners is presently the only offshore drilling services company structured as a partnership, although international offshore drilling contractor�Ocean Rig�(Nasdaq: ORIG) has plans to drop down assets into an MLP this year. The Seadrill Partners IPO involved a drop down of four drilling rigs from the parent — two semi-submersibles (the West Aquarius and the West Capricorn), one tender rig (the West Vencedor), and one ultra-deepwater drillship (the West Capella). These drilling rigs are under long-term contracts with major oil companies such as�Chevron�(NYSE: CVX),�Total�(NYSE:TOT),�BP�(NYSE: BP) and�ExxonMobil�(NYSE: XOM).

Top Blue Chip Companies To Own For 2014: 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 Mike Deane]

  Before the opening bell on Thursday, McDonald’s (MCD) announced its fourth quarter earnings, with revenues increasing from last year’s fourth quarter while global comparable sales fell.

  MCD Earnings in Brief

  McDonald’s reported fourth quarter revenues of $7.093 billion, which were up 2% from last year’s Q4 revenues of $6.952 billion. The company’s net income came in at $1.397 billion, or $1.40 per share, up from last year’s net income of $1.396 billion, or $1.38 per share. MCD beat analysts’ EPS estimate of $1.39 per share, but fell slightly below the revenue expectation of $7.11 billion. For the fourth quarter, MCD reported that global comparable sales fell 0.1%.

  CEO Commentary

  McDonald’s president and CEO, Don Thompson, had the following to say about the company’s mixed report:�”Around the world, consumers want a satisfying meal at an affordable price from a brand they trust. At McDonald’s, delivering a consistent customer-focused restaurant experience continues to be our top priority. While 2013 was a challenging year, we begin 2014 with a renewed focus on the global growth priorities that are most impactful to our customers. We are uniting consumer insights with innovation and consistent execution to optimize our menu, modernize the customer experience and broaden accessibility to Brand McDonald’s.”

  McDonald’s Dividend

  McDonald’s made no mention of a dividend change in its quarterly report. McDonald’s last announced a dividend raise in September 2013 for its December dividend. The company raised its quarterly dividend from 77 cents to 81 cents – a 5.1% raise.

  Stock Performance

  MCD stock was down 36 cents, or 0.38%, in pre-market trading this morning. So far this year, the company’s stock is down 1.59%.

• [By Russ Kaplan]

  McDonald's Corporation (MCD) was founded in 1940, and, over the years, they created a strong, loyal customer base. Their menu has broadened, but they keep their timeless favorites.

• [By Dan Carroll]

  Finally, General Electric and McDonald's (NYSE: MCD  ) report earnings on Friday, with the companies expected to release EPS results of $0.35 and $1.27, respectively -- each slight gains over a year ago. McDonald's is still looking to recover after monthly restaurant sales fell for the first time in a decade last October. Since then, the company's faced tough competition from rivals as well as the push toward healthier eating in many advanced economies that has hurt its revenue outlook. While analysts are expecting McDonald's to bounce back by beating last year's quarterly figure, a miss wouldn't be shocking considering the firm's recent struggles.

• [By Jim Jubak]

  McDonald's (MCD) beat on earnings by a penny, but revenue grew year over year by just 2% and came in $15 million short of Wall Street projections.

  Verizon (VZ) beat analyst estimates by four cents a share, but reported revenue $29 million below expectations.