Updating your Conservative stocks: International Business Machines Corp., ABB Ltd. and Canon Inc.

Article Excerpt

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP. $119 (www.ibm.com) is a buy. The company continues to devote a high 9% of its revenue to research. Some of that spending goes to projects that have huge potential, but could take years to bring to market. For example, IBM is now working on quantum processor chips that are much faster than chips that currently power regular computers. Quantum computing would also spur demand for the company’s analytics software, which can process vast quantities of data. IBM is a Best Buy. ABB LTD. ADRs $25 (www.abb.com) is a buy. The company has now sold 80.1% of its power grid business to Japan’s Hitachi for $11 billion. The power grid business now operates as a joint venture called Hitachi ABB Power Grids. ABB will use between $7.6 billion and $7.8 billion from the power grid sale to buy back 10% of its outstanding shares. ABB is a buy. CANON INC. ADRs $16 (www.canon.com) is a hold. The company’s sales in the second quarter of 2020 fell 25.7%, to $6.23 billion…