Runner-up candidates for our #1 pick

Article Excerpt

We looked at a wide range of stocks before settling on Newell as our #1 pick for 2014. Here are the top four runners-up. All are highly attractive buys, but only Newell has the rare mix of high potential and low risk that we look for in a Stock of the Year. CONAGRA FOODS INC. $32 (New York symbol CAG; Income Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 420.4 million; Market cap: $13.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.8; Dividend yield: 3.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.- conagrafoods.com) is facing strong competition from other processed food makers, which has slowed its earnings growth. Even so, the stock has held up well since we made it our #1 buy for 2013. The company continues to cut costs— including through a new flour-milling joint venture— after last year’s purchase of private-label food maker Ralcorp. These savings will help offset the loss of a big corporate customer. Moreover, ConAgra trades at a moderate 13.6 times its projected…