8 Top Picks With Buy Ratings Seen Out Of Merrill Lynch

The year-end prices are actually Merrill Lynch reference prices here rather than actual formal year-end prints on the NYSE or other exchanges. These are 8 top picks with Buy ratings seen out of Merrill Lynch as a kick-off to 2016.

Texas Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: TXN) closed out 2016 at $72.97, and Merrill Lynch has a price objective of $82.00. If you consider the 2.7% dividend yield, Merrill Lynch is calling for Texas Instruments to generate a return of 15%. What investors might want to consider is that the consensus analyst target price is $74.89, very close to the current price, but Merrill Lynch’s price objective is exactly $10 less than the most aggressive price target on Wall Street. Texas Instruments has a 52-week range of $46.73 to $75.25. RBC was also positive here on Texas Instruments and other large caps.

Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE: NSC) is another top pick from Merrill Lynch, with the firm’s $122.00 price objective being higher than the $108.82 most recent price. Norfolk Southern’s consensus analyst price target of $105.19 is actually lower than the current share price. That makes Merrill Lynch much more positive than the street even if they are just calling for 13% upside. Norfolk Southern has a 52-week range of $64.51 to $111.43.

Hess Corp. (NYSE: HES) was last at $62.90, and Merrill Lynch’s price objective was last seen at $80.00. Hess has a 52-week range of $32.41 to $65.56 and its consensus analyst price target is just at $64.75. What matters here is that Merrill Lynch actually has the highest seen street price target of major analysts.

General Dynamics Corp. (NYSE: GD) was last trading at $173.21 versus a Merrill Lynch price objective of $200.00 for the company. That implies a gain of 15% if Merrill Lynch is right, and then there is the 1.8% dividend yield to consider for total return investors. General Dynamics has a consensus analyst target price of $186.06 and a 52-week range of $121.61 to $180.09.

Aetna Inc. (NYSE: AET) closed out the year at $124.45, and the firm has a $149 price objective. Aetna has a consensus analyst target of $138.93 and has a 52-week range of $92.42 to $136.50. That is still down 10% from a peak, and it remains unknown if the Trump administration will be more tolerant of insurance mergers versus that Obama administration.

Dover Corp. (NYSE: DOV) was at $75.19 at the end of 2016 and the firm has a $85.00 price objective. This is 13% in implied upside for Dover, before considering its 2.3% dividend yield.

MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM) is also a top pick for the first quarter, and Merrill Lynch’s price objective of $33.00 was versus a recent price of $28.50. The consensus analyst target price is a tad higher at $33.86.

SVB Financial Group (NASDAQ: SIVB) has a Buy rating at the firm, and this top pick among the bank stocks has a price objective of $190 versus a current $170.38 close. The parent of Silicon Valley Bank has a consensus analyst price target of $176.19, and its 52-week range is $77.87 to $176.77.

Oil Refinery Dividend Stock Investing - These Portfolio Generated 12.26% Yearly

Oil dropped to just over $40 per barrel, and oil stocks have taken a hit. If you're worried that oil will stay at a low price, then refiners are a good investment.

They do very well when the price of crude is low. Low prices means they can refine more oil, so, apart from the initial hit on inventory, future profit opportunities are strong. People also tend to buy more gas when oil is low, so there's more demand for the refineries.

My latest research focus was the Asset Management, Industrial and finally the Energy Sector.

Within the Energy sector, companies from the downstream segment like Oil refinery stocks look attractive for me. They do not depend highly on the oil price, more on the cracking margin.

The business of the refining players is negatively correlated with crude prices. This is because the companies use oil as an input from which they derive refined petroleum products like gasoline – the prime transportation fuel in the U.S. Hence, lower the oil price, higher will be their profits.

We can say that the decline in crude price, which is expected to continue for some time, will bring more good news for the firms engaged in refining oil.

This means not that downstream companies are better when the oil price slumps. My research result of the past decade was that they also lose value and they are highly volatile. 

In 2008, the year of the financial crisis, the portfolio of the best refinery dividend paying oil stocks lost more than half of its value. After the sell-off, it tripled its value.

Attached is a list of 12 dividend paying oil refinery stocks that gave investors a great past return. Over the last decade, those stocks delivered a 12.26% average yearly return.

The biggest threat is in my view the possibility of a political change in the energy sector. Do politicians want more renewable energy production or put they more money into jobs and growth via the old systems.

Energy is definitely the most important sector that benefits when growth should be created for the economy.

These are the best dividend picks from the Oil Refinery Industry...

7 Stocks With Current Shareholder Yields Of 15% Or More

You know that dividends are essential but buybacks also play a significant role in creating shareholder value.

A low dividend doesn't mean that the corporate pay low amounts of cash to shareholders. Some companies decided to buy back own shares. The shareholder yield (dividend yield plus buyback yield) is essential and tells the truth.

Today I would like to show you those 7 stocks with the highest shareholder yields. I'm not talking about yields of 5 percent or so. I'm taking the extreme of 15 percent or more. The results came from Goldman Sachs latest Total Cash Return to Shareholders list from April 23, 2015.

These are the top results in detail:

12 Fantastic Stocks With Recent Dividend Growth

Stocks with dividend hikes from last week originally published at long-term-investments.blogspot.com. The dividend growth goes into the next round and begins to slow.

Last week, only 12 stocks and two funds announced to hike dividends of which two have a high yield of more than five percent. You can find a detailed list attached with additional price ratios of all 14 assets with dividend growth.

Financial stocks dominating the results; eight of the latest dividend growth stocks belong to the sector. In average, stocks from the sheet hiked dividends by 16.99 percent.

David Einhorn's Latest Portfolio Dividend Stock Changes | Greenlight Capital

Latest stock purchases and sales from David Einhorn, Greenlight Capital originally published at long-term-investments.blogspot.com. David Einhorn has around USD 5.3 billion in assets under management in his asset management company Greenlight Capital. Last Quarter he made 28 transactions and bought 7 new stakes. His portfolio has only 30 stock holdings.

In this article I would like to present you the best dividend stocks, bought and sold by David Einhorn. From his nine stock and ETF purchases pay six a dividend. All of the latest dividend buys from David Einhorn yielding between .13 percent and 1.92 percent. David is no long-term dividend player. He wants a quick total return. The most important buys were ING US, Liberty Global and Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF.

On the short side, he reduced or sold out 19 stocks. 15 of them pay a dividend. The biggest impact had Cigna, Seagate Technology and Microsoft with around 3 percent impact to his portfolio.

Apple remains the biggest stock holding bet. The stake has a value of around one billion dollar. The second biggest position of David Einhorn is the car company General Motors which represents around 10.7 percent of his total portfolio. The third biggest company is the technology stock Marvell with a 9.7 percent share. Both are worth over USD 500 million.

David Einhorn’s Best Yielding Dividend Stock Buys

David Einhorn and his highest yielding dividend stock buys originally published at "long-term-investments.blogspot.com". On May 15, a full range of professional fund managers released its quarter statements. Today I like to look at the best dividend stock buys of David Einhorn. He is the head of Greenlight Capital and serves around 6.5 billion in assets. In total he has 38 stocks of which six were bought within the recent quarter. Below is a list of his 20 biggest transaction within the recent quarters.

His biggest move was related to Apple. He added the position by 83.45%, a change to his portfolio of 7.37%.

15 of his 20 largest stock buys from the recent quarters are dividend stocks. Apple is his biggest bet with a value above a billion dollar.

12 Of The Cheapest S&P 500 Dividend Stocks

Stocks Cheap Price Ratios From The S&P 500 Researched By Dividend Yield - Stock, Capital, Investment. The S&P 500 has over USD 5.58 trillion benchmarked, with index assets comprising approximately USD 1.31 trillion of this total. The index includes 500 leading companies in leading industries of the U.S. economy, capturing 75 percent coverage of U.S. equities. Many investment professionals use the index for their asset allocation.

In order to find the cheapest dividend stocks, I screened the index by companies with a P/S and P/B ratio of less than one and a current P/E ratio below 15. Twelve companies remained of which nine are recommended to buy.