Chevron offers gains and income

Article Excerpt

In an effort to dampen speculation, the CME Group, which owns the NYMEX futures exchange, recently raised the minimum amount of money traders must invest when buying crude-oil futures contracts. Even so, we feel oil prices will remain volatile in light of ongoing political unrest in the Middle East. To lower your risk, we continue to advise that you stick with well-established oil producers like Chevron. The company is using its strong cash flow to build up its reserves. It is also close to completing several big projects that should spur its growth for decades. These projects will give the company even more cash for dividends and share buybacks. CHEVRON CORP. $103 (New York symbol CVX; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 2.0 billion; Market cap: $206.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.0; Dividend yield: 3.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.chevron.com) is the second-largest integrated oil company in the U.S., after ExxonMobil Corp. (New York symbol XOM). Chevron gets 90% of its earnings by…