"One way to build an inflation hedge into your investment cash flows is to focus on stocks that are likely to boost their dividends on a regular basis," explains dividend specialist Chuck Carlson.

In his The DRIP Investor, which focuses on blue chip companies offering dividend reinvestment programs, he notes, "Since dividends are paid with cold cash, they can't be faked. Either you pay the dividend or you don't. They can't be some figment of accounting magic." Here, he looks at three favorite blue chips with strong dividend records.

Clorox (NYSE: CLX), a consumer-products business that counts Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) and Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL) as related stocks, may have seen a sales drop of 1% in its fiscal first quarter, but that didn't stop it from posting a nice bottom-line growth rate. Clorox made $1.11 per share in Q1, and that represents a 23% increase. What a way to start a new corporate year!

According to Reuters, expectations were for 95 cents per share. That's a wonderful beat. Plus, sales volume went up 1%. Helping to drive things along was a healthy gross margin, as well as the dreaded H1N1 virus. Clorox has done well over the years associating its brand with sanitizing effectiveness, so when a pandemic rears its ugly head, the trademark is prepared to leverage such reputation to drive value.

Analyst upgrades:

• FBR Capital upgraded McAfee (NYSE: MFE) to Outperform from Market Perform after channel checks indicated the company's September quarter deal flow has been stronger than expected. FBR raised its target on shares to $50 from $41.
• Thomas Weisel upgraded Adtran (NASDAQ: ADTN) to Overweight from Market Weight, citing increased wireless backhaul capex spending by Tier-1 carriers. The firm raised its target to $32 from $21.
• RBC Capital upgraded Brunswick (NYSE: BC) to Outperform from Sector Perform as the firm thinks the company no longer has liquidity risk and can generate significant profits by 2012. The firm set a $17 target on the stock.
• Bronco Drilling (NASDAQ: BRNC) was upgraded to Hold from Underperform at Jefferies.
• LSI Corp. (NYSE: LSI) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank.
• UBS upgraded U.S. Airways (NYSE: LCC) and UAL Corp. (NASDAQ: UAUA) to Buy from Neutral.

Analyst upgrades:

• FBR Capital upgraded Ann Taylor (NYSE: ANN) to Outperform from Market Perform to reflect a recovery in the missy sector and the company's product improvement. The firm raised its target on shares to $19 from $13.
• Roth Capital upgraded Marvell Tech (NASDAQ: MRVL) to Buy from Hold based on product cycle strength in wireless and Ethernet, HDD share gains, and a return of PC growth. Target is $22.
• Goldman upgraded Colgate (NYSE: CL) to Buy from Neutral citing valuation and expectations for a pick-up in unit growth. The firm raised its price target to $85 from $83. Note that Goldman downgraded Clorox to Neutral from Buy.
• Cadbury (NYSE: CBY) was upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at HSBC.
• Garmin (NASDAQ: GRMN) was upgraded to Buy from Underperform at BofA/Merrill.
• Qwest (NYSE: Q) was upgraded to Market Weight from Underweight at Thomas Weisel.

"While companies have been cutting dividends at an historic pace over the last 24 months, the fact is that there are still quality companies with long histories of paying dividends that represent good long-term investments," says Chuck Carlson, a specialist in companies offering dividend reinvestment plans.

In his top-notch The DRIP Investor he says, "The seven stocks featured here have each been paying a dividend for over 100 years, have raised their dividend annually for at least the last quarter century and offer direct-purchase plans.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says we'll see a big dip lower, but watch these key stocks for underlying buying interest.

At last, a test, a test of the futures! That's what we have been looking for, one of these gigantic down openings like the old days, where it goes down and you stand there and you get pounded. That's what the market was, basically, from the top of 2007 until March -- a series of days where you came in and the futures were down so much that you knew they were going to go lower, except for the people who shorted it the night before and were taking profits.

Welcome home, bears!

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says in the wake of an upgrade, FCX has to do a big equity offering.

What will Richard Adkerson do? I can tell you what the CEO of Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) (Cramer's Take) ought to do in the wake of the Bank of America-Merrill Lynch upgrade to buy from sell. He ought to do the biggest darned equity offering in history.

I like Richard. He's candid, he's a great copper man, but he spent too much at the high on Phelps Dodge and wasn't prepared when copper prices plummeted as his balance sheet's simply not so hot. So he had to cut his dividend at the bottom, literally at the exact bottom.

The Clorox Company (NYSE: CLX), a famous supermarket brand similar to companies such as Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) and Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL), reported Q4 earnings today. Excluding certain factors, Clorox increased its per-share profit by 18% to $1.35.

The dollar continues to wreak havoc on companies with international exposure (there's a whole lot of them, of course). Including currency translations, Clorox's top line was flat. Without the effect (and excluding the impact of a private-label business that the company exited), sales increased 3%. The company utilized price increases to help offset the tough times. Unfortunately, volume decreased 2% during the quarter.

Here are some highlights from last week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) reported strong Q2 earnings thought revenue fell but beat analysts' estimates.
• Colgate-Palmolive Co. (NYSE: CL) beat Q2 earnings estimates but revenue suffered from currency effects.
• Dow Chemical Co. (NYSE: DOW) reported a drop in Q2 revenue and a net loss on restructuring charges.
• Eastman Kodak Co. (NYSE: EK) posted a deeper-than-expected Q2 net loss as sales plunged.
• Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) reported its lowest quarterly profit in years, well short of expectations.

Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL), whose colleagues at the supermarket include companies like Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) and Clorox (NYSE: CLX), did all right in the second quarter. Sales were inhibited by currency rates: they dropped by well over 5%. The bottom line, on the other hand, fared a lot better. The company made $1.07 per share compared to 92 cents per share in the year-ago period. However, the previous year's quarter had 6 cents of charges to take into account, so the adjusted earnings in 2008 actually comes out to 98 cents. This makes the growth rate a modest 9%. The market was expecting $1.05 per share according to Earnings.com, so management beat by two pennies.

I was surprised a little by how the stock sold off on Thursday after the earnings report. Shares of Colgate-Palmolive closed down over 5% on very active volume.

Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB), a consumer-products company that counts Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) and Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL) as colleagues, announced Q2 results on Thursday. The performance wasn't spectacular, but management successfully defended the bottom line from the recession by instituting pricing strategies that leveraged the brand equity of the company's portfolio.

The bottom line fell, of course, but probably not as far as it would have if there weren't any pricing mechanisms in place. Earnings per share came in at 97 cents. This was six cents lower than last year's adjusted Q2 income. Revenues were challenged by dollar fluctuations, dropping well over 5%. However, here's the silver lining: organic sales increased almost 3%, even with volumes on the decline.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says he counts at least six Democrats who won't fall in line -- this bill hasn't a chance.

Everyone's fretting about the new tax brackets -- or at least everyone who's rich or who lives in a high-tax state -- over the health care plan coming out of Congress. Everyone thinks that Nancy Pelosi can never be defeated. She is a juggernaut. More powerful than a speeding bullet. Etc.

But the Senate could be a different story. Remember Pelosi and co. need 60 votes, and there are exactly 60 Democrats. There are two publicly quoted Democratic senators who are not even the most likely biggest objectors -- Sen. Ben Nelson from Nebraska and Sen. Evan Bayh from Indiana.

Consumer-products concern WD-40 (NASDAQ: WDFC) had something of a rough third quarter. According to the press release, which was issued on Wednesday after the bell, sales were down over 16%. The company made 41 cents per diluted share. This was 8 cents less than the previous year's Q3 performance.

It was, however, 3 cents better than what the analysts were looking for, according to Earnings.com. Gross margin, it should also be noted, improved significantly. Driving this positive element of the story were efficiencies in the supply chain, price increases, and the drop in the price of oil.

My final all-American brand is Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL). The company is well-known for its toothpaste and toothbrushes. But Colgate-Palmolive also owns dozens of strong brand names, including Irish Spring, Speed Stick, Ajax, and many others.

Some investors may think of Colgate-Palmolive as a dull stock. That's fine by me.

The shares are far less volatile than most stocks on Wall Street. Even though the market overall is well below the highs it reached in the third quarter of 2007, shares of Colgate-Palmolive were never punished nearly as hard.

Today is the 4th of July, and the nation is busy celebrating its 233rd birthday.

The past year has been pretty rough for the old Republic, with the economy going through its worst spat in 80 years.

Still, I'm an optimist, and I think we'll come through this stronger than ever. To honor America's birthday, I want to highlight three great all-American brands that deserve a place in your portfolio.