20 stocks for turbulent times

Article Excerpt

We still think investors will profit most — and with the least risk — by buying shares of well-established, dividend-paying stocks with strong business prospects. These are companies that have strong positions in healthy industries. They also have strong management that will make the right moves to remain competitive in a changing marketplace. Stocks like these give investors an additional measure of safety in today’s volatile markets. And the best ones offer an attractive combination of low p/e’s (the ratio of a stock’s price to its per-share earnings), steady or rising dividend yields (annual dividend divided by the share price) and promising growth prospects. Here are 20 stocks we think meet those criteria: 3M COMPANY $76 (New York symbol MMM; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 709.5 million; Market cap: $53.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.0; Dividend yield: 2.9%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.3m.com) makes over 55,000 consumer and industrial products, including Post-it notes, Scotch tape, Scotch-Brite cleaning products, Scotchguard fabric protection…