Topic: How To Invest

What is Pat’s commentary for the week of November 1, 2016

Article Excerpt

We still think investors will profit most—and with the least risk—by buying shares of well-established, dividend-paying stocks with strong business prospects. These are companies that have leading positions in healthy industries. They also have strong management that will make the right moves to remain competitive in a changing marketplace. Stocks such as these give investors an additional measure of safety in today’s volatile markets. And the best ones combine a moderate p/e (the ratio of a stock’s price to its per-share earnings) with a steady or rising dividend yield (annual dividend divided by the share price). They also have promising growth prospects. Here are 20 U.S. stocks we think meet those criteria. Pat 3M Company, $165.30, symbol MMM on New York (Shares outstanding: 604.4 million; Market cap: $99.7 billion; www.3m.com), is one of the world’s largest industrial companies. It makes over 60,000 products through five main businesses: industrial (which supplied 33% of its 2015 sales and 30% of its earnings), safety and graphics (18%, 18%),…