Top 5 Blue Chip Companies To Watch For 2015

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over daily movements, we do like to keep an eye on market changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

Stocks closed out January with a whimper as the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI  ) and S&P 500 finished with their worst month in nearly two years. By the time the market closed today, the blue chips were 5.3% lower than they were at the start of the year while the broad-market index was down 3.6%, primarily due to an emerging-market currency scare and the Fed's decision to continue with its bond-buying taper. For the day, the Dow fell 150 points, or 0.9%, while the S&P dropped 0.7%. American stocks were again rattled by emerging-market woes as the Russian ruble and Polish zloty both fell today, and investors seemed to overlook otherwise strong economic reports from home. The University of Michigan said consumer confidence had edged up to 81.2, slightly ahead of expectations, while Chicago PMI also beat projections, hitting 59.6, indicating a robust expansion of manufacturing activity in the Midwest this month.

Top 5 Blue Chip Companies To Watch For 2015: Visa Inc.(V)

Visa Inc., a payments technology company, engages in the operation of retail electronic payments network worldwide. It facilitates commerce through the transfer of value and information among financial institutions, merchants, consumers, businesses, and government entities. The company owns and operates VisaNet, a global processing platform that provides transaction processing services. It also offers a range of payments platforms, which enable credit, charge, deferred debit, debit, and prepaid payments, as well as cash access for consumers, businesses, and government entities. The company provides its payment platforms under the Visa, Visa Electron, PLUS, and Interlink brand names. In addition, it offers value-added services, including risk management, issuer processing, loyalty, dispute management, value-added information, and CyberSource-branded services. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Steve Heller]

  It seems that once you've grown large enough to disrupt business as usual for MasterCard (NYSE: MA  ) and Visa (NYSE: V  ) , you run the risk of getting muscled. MasterCard recently announced plans to raise prices on intermediated payment processors (read: digital wallets) that chose to withhold valuable transaction details from MasterCard. In other words, this measure takes direct aim at eBay's (NASDAQ: EBAY  ) PayPal and other digital wallets such as Google Wallet that do not share transaction details with the payment processor.

Top 5 Blue Chip Companies To Watch For 2015: Philip Morris International Inc(PM)

Philip Morris International Inc., through its subsidiaries, engages in the manufacture and sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products in markets outside of the United States. Its international product brand line comprises Marlboro, Merit, Parliament, Virginia Slims, L&M, Chesterfield, Bond Street, Lark, Muratti, Next, Philip Morris, and Red & White. The company also offers its products under the A Mild, Dji Sam Soe, and A Hijau in Indonesia; Diana in Italy; Optima and Apollo-Soyuz in the Russian Federation; Morven Gold in Pakistan; Boston in Colombia; Belmont, Canadian Classics, and Number 7 in Canada; Best and Classic in Serbia; f6 in Germany; Delicados in Mexico; Assos in Greece; and Petra in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It operates primarily in the European Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Canada, and Latin America. The company is based in New York, New York.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Monica Gerson]

  Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM) is expected to report its Q3 earnings at $1.43 per share on revenue of $7.94 billion.

  Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) is estimated to report its Q3 earnings at $0.74 per share on revenue of $30.16 billion.

• [By Selena Maranjian]

  Other large-cap stocks didn't do quite so well over the last year but could see their fortunes change in years to come. Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM  ) , for example, gained 5% and yields 4.1%. With domestic tobacco companies challenged by tightening regulations, rising taxes, and a shrinking smoking base, many have assumed that Philip Morris is the best bet in tobacco. But in the third quarter, it posted the weakest results, with volume taking a sizable drop and a strong dollar reducing its earnings. Bulls like its innovation and share buybacks.

5 Best Railroad Stocks To Invest In 2015: Chevron Corporation(CVX)

Chevron Corporation, through its subsidiaries, engages in petroleum, chemicals, mining, power generation, and energy operations worldwide. It operates in two segments, Upstream and Downstream. The Upstream segment involves in the exploration, development, and production of crude oil and natural gas; processing, liquefaction, transportation, and regasification associated with liquefied natural gas; transportation of crude oil through pipelines; and transportation, storage, and marketing of natural gas, as well as holds interest in a gas-to-liquids project. The Downstream segment engages in the refining of crude oil into petroleum products; marketing of crude oil and refined products primarily under the Chevron, Texaco, and Caltex brand names; transportation of crude oil and refined products by pipeline, marine vessel, motor equipment, and rail car; and manufacture and marketing of commodity petrochemicals, plastics for industrial uses, and fuel and lubricant additives. It a lso produces and markets coal and molybdenum; and holds interests in 13 power assets with a total operating capacity of approximately 3,100 megawatts, as well as involves in cash management and debt financing activities, insurance operations, real estate activities, energy services, and alternative fuels and technology business. Chevron Corporation has a joint venture agreement with China National Petroleum Corporation. The company was formerly known as ChevronTexaco Corp. and changed its name to Chevron Corporation in May 2005. Chevron Corporation was founded in 1879 and is based in San Ramon, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Doug Ehrman]

  In the following video, Fool.com contributor Doug Ehrman discusses how a change in U.S. policy on the export of crude could benefit certain oil stocks such as Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM  ) and Chevron (NYSE: CVX  ) .

• [By Eric Volkman]

  Chevron (NYSE: CVX  ) is about to make its shareholders a little richer. The company declared a fresh quarterly dividend of $1.00 per share of its common stock, which will be dispensed on June 10 to shareholders of record as of May 17. That amount is 11% higher than the $0.90 Chevron paid in each of its preceding four quarters. Prior to that, the firm handed out $0.81 per share.

Top 5 Blue Chip Companies To Watch For 2015: Colgate-Palmolive Company(CL)

Colgate-Palmolive Company, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and markets consumer products worldwide. It offers oral care products, including toothpaste, toothbrushes, and mouth rinses, as well as dental floss and pharmaceutical products for dentists and other oral health professionals; personal care products, such as liquid hand soap, shower gels, bar soaps, deodorants, antiperspirants, shampoos, and conditioners; and home care products comprising laundry and dishwashing detergents, fabric conditioners, household cleaners, bleaches, dishwashing liquids, and oil soaps. The company offers its oral, personal, and home care products under the Colgate Total, Colgate Max Fresh, Colgate 360 Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Dan Caplinger]

  Moreover, it's starting to appear that Clorox has weathered a tough part of its business cycle. Throughout the industry, Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG  ) , Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL  ) , and Clorox all had to deal with rising costs for the inputs they needed to make their respective products. The companies responded by implementing price-cutting measures and passing on part of their higher costs to their customers. For its part, Clorox was able to expand its gross margins by a full percentage point, with a worse-than-normal flu season contributing to sales. Now that input-cost inflation is easing, P&G and Clorox expect to see better profitability, with growth starting to approach the faster rates that Colgate has enjoyed.

• [By Wallace Witkowski]

  Other earnings highlights in the coming week include Dow components McDonald�� Corp. (MCD) , DuPont (DD) , AT&T Inc. (T) , and Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) . Notable S&P 500 companies include Halliburton Co. (HAL) , Netflix Inc. (NFLX) �, Amgen Inc. (AMGN) �, TripAdvisor Inc. (TRIP) �, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) �, Colgate-Palmolive Co. (CL) �, Ford Motor Co. (F) �, Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) �, and United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) �

• [By Dividend Growth Investor]

  In a previous article, I outlined that it is getting more difficult to find quality dividend paying stocks to buy. Most of the usual suspects like Kimberly-Clark (KMB) or Colgate-Palmolive (CL) are very overvalued today, which prevents me from adding to my positions there. Other companies like Chevron (CVX) are attractively valued today, but unfortunately my portfolio is overweight in them. Currently I find the oil sector to be cheap and have some of the lowest P/E ratios in the market. However, I would hate to be concentrated in one sector which is exposed to the fluctuating prices in its commodity products.

Top 5 Blue Chip Companies To Watch For 2015: McDonald's Corporation(MCD)

McDonald?s Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a worldwide foodservice retailer. It franchises and operates McDonald?s restaurants that offer various food items, soft drinks, coffee, and other beverages. As of December 31, 2009, the company operated 32,478 restaurants in 117 countries, of which 26,216 were operated by franchisees; and 6,262 were operated by the company. McDonald?s Corporation was founded in 1948 and is based in Oak Brook, Illinois.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By WALLSTCHEATSHEET]

  McDonald�� is a well-recognized company that fulfills cravings and demand for quick and delicious food choices that many consumers across the globe enjoy. Democrat members of the U.S. Congress are encouraging McDonald��, along with a handful of other fast food chains, to raise wages for their store workers, communicating with them via a letter signed by representatives. The stock has been trading sideways in the last couple of years and is currently surging higher. Over the last four quarters, earnings and revenues have been rising. However, investors have not been happy with recent earnings announcements. Relative to its peers and sector, McDonald�� has been a weak year-to-date performer. WAIT AND SEE what McDonald�� does this quarter.

• [By Alex Planes]

  Ronald gets a promotion
  McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) joined the New York Stock Exchange�on July 5, 1966. The burger chain was a recent entrant to public markets, as its IPO had taken place only 14 months earlier. In that short time, the company's hot stock had already doubled and been split once as a result. By the end of the decade, shareholders would enjoy two more splits and a special stock-issue dividend. By the time McDonald's joined the Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEX: ^DJI) 19 years after graduating to the Big Board, a single share worth $32.25 in 1966 had grown into 27 shares worth $1,800.

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  How else to explain the drop in the stock market today? The Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped 0.2% to 15,861.26 thanks to big losses Verizon (VZ), which has fallen 1.4% to $47.60, Procter & Gamble (PG), which has declined 1.2% to $80.72, and McDonald’s (MCD), which is off 1.1% at $944.42. The S&P 500 has dropped 0.4% to 1,780.27.

• [By Tom Taulli]

  Competition: Yum certainly has many tough rivals, such as Domino�� (DPZ), Chipotle (CMG), Chick-fil-A and McDonald�� (MCD). And competition in the Chinese market has been heating up as well. Discos, a Taiwan-based fried chicken operator, has been getting lots of traction — with more than 2,000 stores in China. There has also been pressure from Papa John’s (PZZA) and Bellagio Caf茅.