Best Blue Chip Stocks To Buy Right Now

After rising for six consecutive days–the longest winning streak since March–are blue chips ready for a rest?

Bloomberg News

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures have ticked up 0.03%, while S&P 500 futures have dipped 0.03%.

Textron (TXT) has gained 4.4% to $36.20 this morning in pre-open trading after the maker of Cesna airplanes and Bell helicopters agreed to buy Beechcraft for $1.4 billion.

WPCS International (WPCS) has jumped 59% to $2.40 after announced the launch of its bitcoin exchange, BTX Trader.

ANI Pharmaceuticals (ANIP) has climbed 8.9% to $18.80 after it said it would buy 31 generic drugs from Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA). Teva’s shares are little changed in pre-open trading.

Allscripts Healthcare Solutions (MDRX) has dropped 18% to $15.14. Anyone see a catalyst?

Best Canadian Companies To Watch For 2015: Apple Inc.(AAPL)

Apple Inc., together with subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and markets personal computers, mobile communication and media devices, and portable digital music players, as well as sells related software, services, peripherals, networking solutions, and third-party digital content and applications worldwide. The company sells its products worldwide through its online stores, retail stores, direct sales force, third-party wholesalers, resellers, and value-added resellers. In addition, it sells third-party Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod compatible products, including application software, printers, storage devices, speakers, headphones, and other accessories and peripherals through its online and retail stores; and digital content and applications through the iTunes Store. The company sells its products to consumer, small and mid-sized business, education, enterprise, government, and creative markets. As of September 25, 2010, it had 317 retail stores, including 233 stores in the United States and 84 stores internationally. The company, formerly known as Apple Computer, Inc., was founded in 1976 and is headquartered in Cupertino, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Chris Hill]

  In this installment of Investor Beat, our analysts explain why they're watching Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL  ) and Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM  ) .

• [By Steve Heller]

  Last Saturday, Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT  ) permanently lowered its already discounted price for Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL  ) iPhone 5 and 4S on a two-year contract. Available in stores only, shoppers can now score an iPhone 5 for $129 or an iPhone 4S for $39 with a fresh two-year contract from�Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint.

• [By Rick Aristotle Munarriz]

  AP/Shiho FukadaActivist investor Carl Icahn loves to give advice to public companies. But this week, his advice for eBay felt a couple of years behind the curve. Companies can make brilliant moves, but there are also times when things don't work out quite as planned. From a classy handbag maker carrying its latest financials to market, to a blowout report by the leading streaming video service, here's a rundown of the week's best and worst in the business world. Netflix (NFLX) -- Winner Netflix was last year's top performer among S&P 500 stocks, and it's off to another strong start in 2014. Shares of the leading video service hit another all-time high this week after it posted blowout quarterly results. Netflix closed out the year on a strong note with more than 44 million streaming subscribers worldwide and expanding profit margins. It expects to top 48 million streaming members by the end of March. Strong financial results naturally make you a winner, but Netflix also got the market excited by announcing that it will soon offer a variety of pricing plans. More importantly, it's suggesting that it may eventually increase the price of its basic $7.99 a month plan. Coach (COH) -- Loser Luxury handbags are still selling, but Coach totes aren't faring as well. The iconic maker of high-end purses and accessories posted disappointing quarterly results on Tuesday. Sales declined by 6 percent during the seasonally potent holiday quarter, and net income took an even bigger hit. Foreign currency translations weighed on the results, but sales still would have been lower if there weren't any currency fluctuations. Coach investors shouldn't be surprised. Sales, net income, and store-level comparable sales also slipped three months earlier. It's not the niche. Michael Kors (KORS) has been able to post healthy double-digit growth through the gradual fade in prominence at Coach. Beats Music -- Winner Music streaming has become popular, and that's big for the musi

• [By Ashraf Eassa]

  On the other hand, Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE: TSM  ) and Samsung, the two remaining leading-edge foundries, are claiming that their 14/16-nanometer process technologies will be in high volume production during 2015. If we look at what has been announced so far in the way of products and timelines, we can get a sense of Intel's competitive position:

  Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM  ) has announced 20-nanometer Snapdragon parts for sampling in H2 2014 and in devices by H1 2015. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL  ) is reputed to be TSMC's major 20-nanometer customer for an iPhone 6 launch in the August-September timeframe. AMD (NYSE: AMD  ) has indicated that it will be moving to 20-nanometer during 2015 and then it will roll out designs based on 14/16 FinFET at some point during 2016 (likely mid- to late 2016 if the current product release cadence holds).

  Let's focus on Qualcomm
  Intel's fiercest direct competitor in the chip space is Qualcomm, so it's worth taking a look at what the product release�cadence for Qualcomm's products on new manufacturing technologies has been. (These are first device launches, so silicon is available a few months beforehand.)

Best Blue Chip Stocks To Buy Right Now: Chevron Corporation(CVX)

Chevron Corporation, through its subsidiaries, engages in petroleum, chemicals, mining, power generation, and energy operations worldwide. It operates in two segments, Upstream and Downstream. The Upstream segment involves in the exploration, development, and production of crude oil and natural gas; processing, liquefaction, transportation, and regasification associated with liquefied natural gas; transportation of crude oil through pipelines; and transportation, storage, and marketing of natural gas, as well as holds interest in a gas-to-liquids project. The Downstream segment engages in the refining of crude oil into petroleum products; marketing of crude oil and refined products primarily under the Chevron, Texaco, and Caltex brand names; transportation of crude oil and refined products by pipeline, marine vessel, motor equipment, and rail car; and manufacture and marketing of commodity petrochemicals, plastics for industrial uses, and fuel and lubricant additives. It a lso produces and markets coal and molybdenum; and holds interests in 13 power assets with a total operating capacity of approximately 3,100 megawatts, as well as involves in cash management and debt financing activities, insurance operations, real estate activities, energy services, and alternative fuels and technology business. Chevron Corporation has a joint venture agreement with China National Petroleum Corporation. The company was formerly known as ChevronTexaco Corp. and changed its name to Chevron Corporation in May 2005. Chevron Corporation was founded in 1879 and is based in San Ramon, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Maxx Chatsko]

  Chevron (NYSE: CVX  )
  Although I believe most of Chevron's growth will come from natural gas assets in Australia and Asia, the company owns more than 500,000 bpd of refining capacity from the two largest refineries in California. That could provide a sleeper growth opportunity if the United States ever chooses to develop the Monterey shale in the central and southern parts of the state. Recent estimates peg the total reserves in the formation as high as 15.4 billion barrels -- twice that of the Bakken. There are serious water and environmental concerns that are lacking solutions at the moment, but the formation would be a big boon to refiners on the West Coast. Aside from potentially lowering gasoline prices for drivers in the region, the influx in cheap oil would certainly attract Asian countries that have fallen over each other to get to Canada's land-locked oil sands. The margins on Monterey exports could be huge, depending on recovery economics and oil quality. �

• [By Victor Selva]

  It is best suited for investors looking for diversification across sectors at a low cost. Let's see the fund麓s holding list:

  Apple Inc (AAPL) 3.21% Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM) 2.80% Google Inc (GOOG) 1.97% General Electric Co (GE) 1.80% Microsoft Corp (MSFT) 1.78% Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) 1.62% Chevron Corp (CVX) 1.52% Procter & Gamble Co (PG) 1.40% JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM) 1.38% Wells Fargo & Co (WFC)1.38%

  Total Percentage of Top 10 Holdings: 18.86%

• [By John Divine]

  The oil and gas sector was the only major sector to decline today, and Chevron (NYSE: CVX  ) shares acted unsurprisingly, slipping 0.8% as a result. Today, the company announced a $1.5 billion investment in an Argentine energy company, but for the $240 billion Chevron, that's just a drop in the bucket.

Best Blue Chip Stocks To Buy Right Now: International Business Machines Corporation(IBM)

International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) provides information technology (IT) products and services worldwide. Its Global Technology Services segment provides IT infrastructure and business process services, including strategic outsourcing, process, integrated technology, and maintenance services, as well as technology-based support services. The company?s Global Business Services segment offers consulting and systems integration, and application management services. Its Software segment offers middleware and operating systems software, such as WebSphere software to integrate and manage business processes; information management software for database and enterprise content management, information integration, data warehousing, business analytics and intelligence, performance management, and predictive analytics; Tivoli software for identity management, data security, storage management, and datacenter automation; Lotus software for collaboration, messaging, and so cial networking; rational software to support software development for IT and embedded systems; business intelligence software, which provides querying and forecasting tools; SPSS predictive analytics software to predict outcomes and act on that insight; and operating systems software. Its Systems and Technology segment provides computing and storage solutions, including servers, disk and tape storage systems and software, point-of-sale retail systems, and microelectronics. The company?s Global Financing segment provides lease and loan financing to end users and internal clients; commercial financing to dealers and remarketers of IT products; and remanufacturing and remarketing services. It serves financial services, public, industrial, distribution, communications, and general business sectors. The company was formerly known as Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. and changed its name to International Business Machines Corporation in 1924. IBM was founded in 1910 and is based in Armonk, New York.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Dan Caplinger]

  IBM (NYSE: IBM  ) has posted a weaker climb of 2.7%, but given its dominance of the Dow, it actually had a greater positive impact on the average than UnitedHealth. Ahead of IBM's quarterly report, many investors had feared that a slowdown in IT consulting activity reported by IBM competitors would hurt Big Blue's results, and that trend played a role in the company's 17% drop in earnings on about 3% lower revenue. But the company managed to improve its margins by more than a full percentage point, making the most of its waning revenue. Moreover, raising its guidance for full-year operating earnings by $0.20 per share helped make IBM investors more enthusiastic about the prospects for the company's big-data efforts and other growth initiatives.

• [By Wallace Witkowski]

  Other notable earnings fall toward the tech end of the spectrum with reports from Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) , Intel Corp. (INTC) , International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) , eBay Inc. (EBAY) and Google Inc. (GOOG) .

Best Blue Chip Stocks To Buy Right Now: Philip Morris International Inc(PM)

Philip Morris International Inc., through its subsidiaries, engages in the manufacture and sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products in markets outside of the United States. Its international product brand line comprises Marlboro, Merit, Parliament, Virginia Slims, L&M, Chesterfield, Bond Street, Lark, Muratti, Next, Philip Morris, and Red & White. The company also offers its products under the A Mild, Dji Sam Soe, and A Hijau in Indonesia; Diana in Italy; Optima and Apollo-Soyuz in the Russian Federation; Morven Gold in Pakistan; Boston in Colombia; Belmont, Canadian Classics, and Number 7 in Canada; Best and Classic in Serbia; f6 in Germany; Delicados in Mexico; Assos in Greece; and Petra in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It operates primarily in the European Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Canada, and Latin America. The company is based in New York, New York.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Chuck Carnevale]

  But it was with the last couple of sentences of his blog post that I took the greatest exception. More precisely, I found that his example of Phillip Morris International (PM) to be misleading. However, not because of what Roger included, but rather because of what he left out. I will elaborate more right after the following excerpt where he closed out his blog post:

Best Blue Chip Stocks To Buy Right Now: Visa Inc.(V)

Visa Inc., a payments technology company, engages in the operation of retail electronic payments network worldwide. It facilitates commerce through the transfer of value and information among financial institutions, merchants, consumers, businesses, and government entities. The company owns and operates VisaNet, a global processing platform that provides transaction processing services. It also offers a range of payments platforms, which enable credit, charge, deferred debit, debit, and prepaid payments, as well as cash access for consumers, businesses, and government entities. The company provides its payment platforms under the Visa, Visa Electron, PLUS, and Interlink brand names. In addition, it offers value-added services, including risk management, issuer processing, loyalty, dispute management, value-added information, and CyberSource-branded services. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Adam J. Wiederman]

  Alamy They're "the gift most everyone buys for the holidays," according to USA Today. This holiday season alone, nearly 81 percent of shoppers will buy at least one gift card -- totaling nearly $30 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. The benefits of buying gift cards are clear: They make great last-minute gifts (in a way that seems more personal than cash) and they vastly reduce the odds of you getting someone something just don't want or will never use. In fact, the percentage of consumers who made a holiday return has plummeted over the past few years as gift card purchases rose, according to data from America's Research Group. But if you're not careful, these gift cards could end up leaving you -- or your giftee -- with less money than you thought. Hidden Fees and Dates Recent changes to federal law have made gift cards even more consumer-friendly. For example, gift cards must now remain valid for five years. This law has worked as intended -- the amount unused on gift cards now only totals 1 percent of total sales ... down from 6.4 percent just four years ago, according to CEB TowerGroup. But this unused amount still totals more than $1 billion each year. To make sure your gift card purchase (or receipt) isn't included among these sunk costs, here are some tips to remember whether you're on the giving or receiving end of a gift card this year. If You Are Purchasing a Gift Card: 1. Stick to buying store-branded gift cards. Bankrate.com's annual Gift Card Survey uncovered that the major gift cards offered through banks and credit card companies (generic Visa (V) or American Express (AXP), for example) charged either purchase fees or maintenance/inactivity fees (or both). On the other hand, only a small handful of store-branded cards reviewed carried similar fees. 2. Send either an e-gift card or purchase the gift card in store. Many gift cards (even store-branded ones) carry purchase fees disguised as "delivery fees." For example,

• [By WWW.DAILYFINANCE.COM]

  Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images MasterCard (MA), the world's second-largest debit and credit card company, said it was extending its zero-liability policy for cardholders in the United States to include all PIN-based and ATM transactions. The move follows several data breaches at U.S. companies including one at Target (TGT) late last year involving the theft of about 40 million credit and debit card records. "The move by MasterCard just enhances the sense of security for people at a time when it has been shaken up significantly in recent times," said Gil Luria, an analyst with Wedbush Securities. Zero-liability protection currently covers card transactions that require a customer's signature but doesn't apply if an account holder's personal identification number, or PIN, was used for unauthorized transactions. The new policy will take effect in October. Zero-liability protection means the account holder won't be held responsible for unauthorized transactions. Larger rival Visa's (V) zero-liability policy doesn't apply to PIN-based and ATM transactions, according to information available on the company's website. "The changes that we're making in cardholder protection combined with our efforts to move the U.S. payments industry to EMV chip technology will help deliver safer shopping experiences to consumers," said Chris McWilton, president of North American markets for MasterCard. The two companies have urged banks and retailers to meet an October 2015 deadline for the adoption of "EMV" chip technology that would make it safer to pay with plastic. "This all comes back to the adoption of EMV. Of all the cards that are breached at ATMs, a majority of them are non-EMV cards. This is just another way for the company to impress upon the importance of quickly adopting EMV cards," said Philip Philliou, managing partner of Philliou Partners, a firm that helps banks and retailers select payment processors. U.S. cards issued by MasterCard will also

• [By Matt Koppenheffer and David Hanson]

  Both Visa (NYSE: V  ) and MasterCard (NYSE: MA  ) have consistently outperformed for investors, based on what many see as a rock-solid simple investing thesis: that these companies have nowhere to go but up as the world switches from cash transactions to credit. But is that thesis just a little too simple to be safe? And can the growth ahead really justify these very pricey multiples? In this video, Fool financial analysts Matt Koppenheffer and David Hanson discuss which of these two hot financial stocks is a more attractive buy today.

• [By Paul Ausick]

  Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) slipped 2.41% for the day, likely on the coattails of an earnings miss by rival MasterCard In. (NYSE: MA). Consumer finance stocks were near the top of today�� sector losers. Shares closed at $215.56 in a 52-week range of $154.14 to $235.50. Volume was about 70% above the daily average of around 3 million shares.