WAL-MART STORES INC. - New York symbol WMT

WAL-MART STORES INC. $57 (New York symbol WMT; Conservative Growth Portfolio: Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 3.4 billion; Market cap: $193.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.4; Dividend yield: 2.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.walmart.com) fell 8% recently after it admitted that it is investigating allegations that executives of its 69%-owned Mexican subsidiary paid bribes to local officials in 2005 to speed up the construction of new stores.

U.S. companies are prohibited from bribing foreign officials under the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Wal-Mart is fully cooperating with American and Mexican authorities. This should limit any possible fines it may have to pay. The company has also strengthened its internal accounting controls to make sure all of its overseas businesses comply with the anti-bribery law.

The stock could stagnate, or fall further, if the investigation uncovers more bad news. However, it’s unlikely that this scandal will permanently harm Wal-Mart’s reputation or its sales growth.

Wal-Mart is still a buy.

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Blue Chip Stocks

Blue chip stocks are big, well-established, dividend-paying corporations with strong business prospects. These are companies that also have sound management that should be able to make the right moves to keep competing successfully in a changing marketplace.

Dividend Stocks

Dividend stocks make cash payouts that serve as a way for companies to share the wealth they’ve accumulated. These payouts are drawn from earnings and cash flow and paid to the shareholders of the company. Typically, these dividends are paid quarterly, although they may be paid annually or even monthly as well.

Value Stocks

What are value stocks?

One of the sweetest and most profitable pleasures of successful investing is to buy high-quality “value stocks” (or stocks that are reasonably priced, if not cheap, in relation to its sales, earnings or assets), then hold on to them as mainstream investors recognize the value and push up the share price.

Growth Stocks

Growth stocks are companies that are likely to have sales and earnings growth well above market average. Frequently they pay few, if any, dividends. Instead they typically reinvest any extra cash flow to promote further growth. Chosen wisely—according to Pat McKeough’s advice—high-quality growth-oriented stocks can be worthwhile additions to most well-diversified portfolios.

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AI Investing

Artificial intelligence (AI) is essentially the merging of today’s big computing with big data. This has resulted in breakthroughs in everything from creating machines to recognize faces with more accuracy than a human, to the development of chatbots able to collect, organize and simplify all the Internet has to say on any topic.

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