wall street

Are blue chip stocks safe? Well, they are safer than other investments due to their sound financials, history of success, and reputation—but no investment is guaranteed

Are blue chip stocks safe? While there are no guarantees in stock investing, at TSI Network we feel that blue chip stocks that have been paying dividends for five to 10 years or more are among the safer investments you can make....

A: Lamb Weston Holdings Inc., $70.01, symbol LW on New York (Shares outstanding: 146.5 million; Market cap: $10.3 billion; www.lambweston.com), is a recommendation of our Wall Street Stock Forecaster newsletter.

Lamb Weston was a wholly owned subsidiary of Conagra Brands (symbol CAG on New York, and also a recommendation of Wall Street Stock Forecaster) until November 9, 2016....

A: Barclays plc (ADR), $8.66, symbol BCS on New York (ADRs outstanding: 4.3 billion; Market cap: $37.0 billion; www.barclays.com), is a U.K.-based bank and financial services company that provides retail banking, credit cards, corporate and investment banking and wealth management services....

A: Vanguard Consumer Discretionary ETF, $159.56, symbol VCR on New York, aims to track the MSCI US IMI Consumer Discretionary 25/50 Index. That index follows U.S. consumer discretionary companies. Those firms, in the manufacturing and service industries, are highly sensitive to economic cycles....

Recently some Inner Circle members have asked why the price/earnings ratios, or P/Es, of automakers, such as Ford Motor Co., are as low as they are today. They wonder if these low P/Es represent a warning sign, or a buying opportunity. There’s no simple answer to that question....

We recently upgraded our advice on Mondelez from hold to buy in our Wall Street Stock Forecaster.

That’s mainly because the company is now starting to see the benefits of a multi-year restructuring plan. Besides improving its profitability, new plants and machinery have also made it easier for Mondelez to alter the size and composition of its snack foods to meet changing consumer tastes in various countries.

The company’s stake in Keurig Dr Pepper—now the seventh-largest food and beverage company in the U.S....

A: The ALPS Sector Dividend Dogs ETF, $43.27, symbol SDOG on New York (Units outstanding: 49.3 million; Market cap: $2.1 billion; www.alpssectordividenddogs.com), is an ETF that applies the “Dogs of the Dow” theory on a sector-by-sector basis using the stocks in the S&P 500....

I’ve touched on the subject of conflicts of interest many times over the years. These conflicts are often minor, but we see them as adding up to an investor’s greatest single risk, because they are so plentiful.

Many readers assume these conflicts are all about money, and that they come out of greed and dishonesty....

In a recent Hotline for our Spinoffs, Takeovers & Special Situations newsletter, we alerted investors to the increasing likelihood that Campbell Soup Co. (a recommendation of our Wall Street Stock Forecaster) would either put itself up for sale or spin off some of its operations....

ENERGEN CORP. $74 (New York symbol EGN; Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 97.4 million; Market cap: $7.2 billion; No dividend paid; Takeover Target Rating: Medium; www.energen.com) explores for oil and gas in Texas and New Mexico. It has reserves of 444 million barrels of oil equivalent and the potential for another 2.7 billion barrels for future development.


Billionaire investor Carl Icahn now owns 7.5% of Energen....