When I think of Martin Luther King many notions come to mind, but today on a day our nation takes pause to recognize the man and his ideals I was thinking about the word dignity.

While King had many ideals and made tremendous sacrifices to achieve them there is one thing he never gave up for one moment and would let no man take away -- that was his dignity.

I chose the picture of him receiving the Nobel peace prize because he was not only deserving of the prize but because he was actually a very noble man and it is more than ironic (spelling aside) to give such a prize to one such as he.

As we salute the man and his ideals is there anything that we can learn from his example that might be carried over into the investment world?

When I consider such things I often think about a company's credit worthiness. As measured by Standard and Poors: Credit ratings measure how likely companies are to pay back debt, which lets investors know the likelihood of getting their money back. Therefore AAA ratings generally go to large companies with tremendous financial resources. This list is very short.

Today the list includes Automatic Data Processing (NYSE: ADP), Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A), Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM), General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), Johnson and Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and among financial stocks Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC).