Serious Money: Spot-checking 'stable stocks'

Posted Jul 11th 2008 1:11PM by Sheldon Liber
Filed under: Walt Disney (DIS), Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), Chubb Corp (CB), Teva Pharm Indus ADR (TEVA), Serious Money, S and P 500, Stocks to Buy, Best Stocks for 2008, Xcel Energy (XEL)

Updating the story with the final numbers heading into the week end. The market looked sad again today, so I thought I would spot-check Serious Money: Five stable stocks for troubled times, to see if my picks, (suggested watchlist considerations) were holding up...so far so good, sort of...

The standard for comparison will be the Standard & Poors 500 Index, which closed on June 30, 2008 at 1,280.00. The following are the five stocks with closing prices from July 1.

1) Johnson and Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) closed at $64.34 and pays a 2.89% dividend yield. (NOW $66.53 -- up 3.4%) finished at $66.26 -- up 2.98%.

2) Teva Pharmaceuticals ADR (NASDAQ: TEVA) closed at $45.80 and pays a 1% dividend yield.( NOW 42.58 -- down 7%) finished at $41.78 -- down 8.78%.

3) Chubb Corp (NYSE: CB) closed at $49.01 and pays a 2.64% dividend yield. (NOW $47.51 -- down 3%) finished at $47.56 -- down 2.96%.

4) Xcel Energy (NYSE: XEL) closed at $20.07 and pays a 4.81% dividend yield. (NOW $20.31 -- up .8%) finished at$20.31 -- up 1.2%.

5) Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) closed at $31.20 and pays a 1.11% dividend yield. (NOW $28.82 -- down 7.6%) finished at $29.20 -- down 6.41%.

I reviewed about 600 stocks before settling on these five. The average yield of the five is 2.49%. That is higher than the average stock fund.

The average loss for these stock picks since the original post is (mid-day -2.68%), final 2.79% compared to the S&P 500 Index which is down from 1280 to (mid-day1231 or -3.8%) final of 1239.49 down 3.16% over the same period.

These are the stocks I think will hold up well if the stock market continues to be dismal over the next year. Remember the subject is stability. It is not a coincidence that all of them pay a dividend and the dividend may offset any loss as it has so far.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. DISCLOSURE: I currently own shares of JNJ.

Tags: CB, Chubb, DIS, featured, JNJ, Johnson and Johnson, johnsonandjohnson, sandp500, serious money, SeriousMoney, TEVA, teva pharmaceutical, TevaPharmaceutical, Walt Disney, WaltDisney, xcel energy, XcelEnergy, XEL