Cost savings protect this dividend

Article Excerpt

CHEVRON CORP. $103 remains a buy. The company (New York symbol CVX; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 1.9 billion; Market cap: $195.7 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.1; Dividend yield: 5.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.chevron.com) has completed its purchase of Noble Energy Inc. (New York symbol NBL) for $4.1 billion in stock. Based in Texas, Noble produces oil and natural gas at properties in the U.S., Israel and Equatorial Guinea. The company also assumed $7.7 billion of Noble’s debt. Eliminating overlapping operations with Noble should let Chevron cut $300 million from its annual costs by the end of 2021. That will help it maintain its current annual dividend rate of $5.16 a share, which yields 5.0%. In 2020, dividend payments totalled $9.7 billion. Chevron is a buy. buy…