I was out all morning and returned to my desk to find employment and retail numbers sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbling down 345 points today. That made me think it was important to check out how stable my stable stocks -- stocks with the ability to ride out this bearish run -- were doing in bad times.

This update is a spot-check of my earlier post Serious Money: Five stable stocks for troubled times, to see how my picks are holding up so far. Closing prices are for today.

The standard for comparison is the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, which closed on June 30, 2008 at 1,280.00. The S&P closed today at 1,236.82, down 3.37%. The percentage gains do not include dividends. Four out of five of my picks beat all the indices; CB was close.

1) Johnson and Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) -- when recommended the stock closed at $64.34 and paid a 2.89% dividend yield. It finished at $70.45 -- up 9.5%

2) Teva Pharmaceuticals ADR (NASDAQ: TEVA) -- when recommended the stock closed at $45.80 and paid a 1% dividend yield. It finished at $47.92 -- up 4.63%.

Well, the market was in the dumps yesterday and is even worse today. So this may be a good time to check on my list of stocks for those looking for equities that are stable enough to ride out this bearish storm.

This update is a spot-check of my earlier post Serious Money: Five stable stocks for troubled times, to see how my picks are holding up so far. Closing prices are for August 12, 2008.

The standard for comparison will be the Standard & Poor's 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) -- when recommended the stock closed at $64.34 and paid a 2.89% dividend yield. It finished at $71.70 -- up 11.44%

2) Teva Pharmaceuticals ADR (NASDAQ: TEVA) -- when recommended the stock closed at $45.80 and paid a 1% dividend yield. It finished at $46.41-- up 1.3%.

3) Chubb Corp. (NYSE: CB) -- when recommended the stock closed at $49.01 and paid a 2.64% dividend yield. It finished at $48.39 -- down 1.26%.

After seeing the interest in yesterday's Serious Money: Five stable stocks for troubled times, I decided to track the stocks on a quarterly basis to see how they hold up over time (otherwise, what would be the purpose of discussing them in the first place?).

I said that all five have shrewd, conservative management teams and have been in the right place, at the right time -- and prepared. The standard for comparison will be the Standard & Poors 500 Index which closed on June 30, 2008 at 1,280.00. Although my original story was published yesterday, I will be using the second quarter end point for my five stocks as well.

1) Johnson and Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) closed at $64.34 and pays a 2.89% dividend yield.

2) Teva Pharmaceuticals ADR (NASDAQ: TEVA) closed at $45.80 and pays a 1% dividend yield.

3) Chubb Corp (NYSE: CB) closed at $49.01 and pays a 2.64% dividend yield.

Six months of 2008 are now behind us and the stock market has not been a friendly place to most investors. Stability that was once found in household names that were industry giants is gone, and they have now been brought to their knees.

Many of them were the stocks we might have looked to in the past for stability, so you can be sure I put forward my five candidates with a little trepidation, but forward I go anyway. First a little review is in order.

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) dropped from around $53 per share last year to around $30 in January and we can buy it today for around $17. Even at that price Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) has downgraded it to a sell and thinks there is more bad news to come. Citigroup was the largest bank in the world. Not any more.

General Motors (NYSE: GM) was the largest car maker in the world. That was before the stock tumbled from $43 to its current $11 range. A crushing blow to long time investors hoping that someone in the company could stop the ship from sinking.