Chevron Corp.

TUPPERWARE BRANDS CORP., $74.04, New York symbol TUP, makes household products, including educational toys and plastic food and beverage containers. It also produces a range of cosmetics, bath oils and fragrances. This week, the company reported quarterly earnings that matched the consensus estimate. However, weaker sales in developed markets like North America and Europe prompted it to cut its full-year sales and earnings projections. That caused the stock to fall 12%. Excluding unusual items, Tupperware’s earnings declined 4.1% in the three months ended June 28, 2014, to $75.1 million from $78.3 million a year earlier. Per-share earnings rose 0.7%, to $1.47 from $1.46, on fewer shares outstanding....

SPDR DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE ETF $169.58 (New York symbol DIA; buy or sell through brokers; www.spdrs.com) holds the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The SPDR Dow Jones ETF’s top holdings are Visa, IBM, Goldman Sachs Group, ExxonMobil, Chevron, 3M, McDonald’s, Caterpillar, United Technologies and Boeing. The fund’s expenses are about 0.17% of its assets.

SPDR Dow Jones ETF is a buy.

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SPDR S&P 500 ETF $197.12 (New York symbol SPY; buy or sell through brokers; www.spdrs.com) holds the stocks in the S&P 500 Index, which consists of 500 major in U.S. companies that are chosen based on their market cap, liquidity and industry group.

The index’s highest-weighted stocks are Apple, ExxonMobil, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, J.P. Morgan Chase, IBM, Chevron, General Electric, Pfizer, Berkshire Hathaway, Verizon, Wells Fargo and AT&T. The fund’s expenses are just 0.10% of its assets.

If you want exposure to the S&P 500 Index, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF is a buy.

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TRANSCANADA CORP. $51.93 (Toronto symbol TRP; Shares outstanding: 708.0 million; Market cap: $36.3 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.7%; www.transcanada.com) has agreed to build a $1.9-billion, 260-kilometre pipeline that would pump natural gas from northeastern B.C.’s Dawson Creek area to a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant at Kitimat, on the
province’s coast.

The plant is a joint venture between Chevron Corp. (New York symbol CVX) and Apache Corp. (New York symbol APA). Both are recommendations of Wall Street Stock Forecaster, our newsletter that focuses on U.S. stocks.

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TRANSCANADA CORP. $51.93 (Toronto symbol TRP; Shares outstanding: 708.0 million; Market cap: $36.3 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.7%; www.transcanada.com) has agreed to build a $1.9-billion, 260-kilometre pipeline that would pump natural gas from northeastern B.C.’s Dawson Creek area to a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant at Kitimat, on the province’s coast. The plant is a joint venture between Chevron Corp. (New York symbol CVX) and Apache Corp. (New York symbol APA). Both are recommendations of Wall Street Stock Forecaster, our newsletter that focuses on U.S. stocks....

Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are set up to mirror the performance of a stock market index or sub-index. They hold a more or less fixed selection of securities that represent the holdings that go into the calculation of the index or sub-index. ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks. That’s different from mutual funds, which you can only buy at the end of the day, at a price that reflects the fund’s value at the close of trading. Prices of ETFs are quoted in newspaper stock tables and online. You pay brokerage commissions to buy and sell them, but their low management fees give them a cost advantage over most mutual funds....

NORDION INC., $13.89, Toronto symbol NDN, gained 8% this week in response to a new takeover offer. The company recently accepted a $12.25 U.S.-a-share friendly bid from Sterigenics, a privately held Illinois firm that sterilizes surgical tools, drug ingredients and other materials. However, Nordion now says it has received a $12.50-U.S.-a-share offer from an undisclosed bidder. That prompted Sterigenics to raise its bid to $13.00 U.S....

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 moderate 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....

CHEVRON CORP. $123 (New York symbol CVX; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 1.9 billion; Market cap: $233.7 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.1; Dividend yield: 3.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.chevron.com) plans to increase production at its Permian shale oil properties in west Texas by two-thirds, to 250,000 barrels a day, by 2020....

CHEVRON CORP. $123 (New York symbol CVX; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 1.9 billion; Market cap: $233.7 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.1; Dividend yield: 3.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.chevron.com) plans to increase production at its Permian shale oil properties in west Texas by two-thirds, to 250,000 barrels a day, by 2020. That’s equal to 9.7% of its overall production in the first quarter of 2014.

Moreover, the company does not have to pay royalties to landholders on over half of its Permian holdings, which will make these properties more profitable.

In addition, Chevron raised its dividend by 7.0%. The new annual rate of $4.28 a share yields 3.5%.

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