Venerable General Electric (GE), once the longest-serving member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, will officially split into two companies at the start of next month.

And the old GE name is going away. 

GE will spin off GE Vernova on April 2, which will then start trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker GEV. Holders of GE common stock will receive one share of GE Vernova common stock for every four shares of GE common stock held as of March 19.

Importantly, GE shareholders will continue to hold their shares of GE common stock – but now with the company name GE Aerospace, GE said in a press release. Meanwhile, GE Aerospace will continue GE's listing on the NYSE under the ticker symbol GE.

GE Vernova houses the former conglomerate's gas power and renewable energy business. GE spun off GE HealthCare Technologies (GEHC) in January 2023. 

GE first announced its decision to split into three companies focusing on aviation, healthcare and energy, respectively, in 2021.

Better times for GE stock?

GE stock is a long-time market laggard, but it has clobbered the broader market over the past year – and especially since its board set the GE Vernova spinoff date.

If you go back two decades, GE sports an annualized total return (price change plus dividends) of just 2%. The S&P 500 generated an annualized total return of more than 10% over the same period. Over the past 10 years, GE lagged the broader market by about 11 percentage points.

But GE's decision to split up helped change sentiment on the name. Its price performance is much more encouraging since it decided to split, with upside accelerating as the spinoffs came to fruition. GE's annualized total return easily tops the S&P 500 over the past five years, and doubles the broader market's returns for the trailing three-year period. 

Cut to today, and GE has been clobbering the broader market. Shares are up 85% on a price basis over the past 52 weeks, vs 26% for the S&P 500. For the year-to-date, GE is sitting on a 25% price gain, vs the broader market's 7%.

Even better, Wall Street likes the "new" GE's prospects as GE Aerospace going forward.

Of the 17 analysts covering the stock surveyed by S&P Global Market Intelligence, five call it a Strong Buy, two say Buy, six have it at Hold and three rate it at Sell. That works out to a consensus recommendation of Buy, with solid conviction. 

Bulls argue that GE Aerospace has significant advantages over rivals, among other reasons to be constructive on the stock. 

"Comparing its engine business vs its closest peers, we continue to see GE outperforming in the coming years," writes Morgan Stanley analyst Matt Akers, who rates the stock at Overweight (the equivalent of Buy). "GE's commercial engine fleet is approximately three times larger than its competitor's, giving it a bigger base to spread costs."

The analyst adds that GE's commercial engine fleet stands out vs peers due to better demographics. "Nearly two-thirds are mid-life engines in their prime aftermarket period," Akers notes. 

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Green energy stocks got a lift thanks to the clean energy incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), along with the dual catalysts of rising demand and lower costs.

Rising demand driven by leading AI data center operators is now the No. 1 factor supporting green energy stocks, despite President Donald Trump's effort to eliminate renewable and electric vehicle (EV) tax credits.

As Deloitte explained in its 2024 renewable energy industry outlook, the IRA extended wind and solar tax credits for projects that started construction before 2025 through at least 2032.

But state-level clean-energy legislation has also provided a boost, with 22 states and Washington, D.C., targeting 100% renewable energy or 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040 to 2050.

In addition, 43 of the 45 largest U.S. investor-owned utilities have committed to reducing their carbon emissions by raising the use of renewables.

"We expect little impact to U.S. utility-scale solar demand from corporate sustainability goals with or without tax credits," writes UBS analyst Jon Windham in a recent note on energy intensity and electricity costs for leading AI data centers and the impact on electric utility stocks.

According to Windham's analysis, the loss of renewable tax credits would have minimal impact on operating margins across tech stocks. "A detailed review of their sustainability reports reveals continued deep commitment to carbon free energy sourcing," Windham concludes.

Reuters reported less than 10 days after the election that Trump's transition team planned to kill the $7,500 consumer tax credit for electric-vehicle purchases as part of broader tax-reform legislation that we now know as the "big, beautiful" bill.

Such a law would have a deep but disparate impact on the EV market. Most EV stocks continue to trade on simple supply and demand in an increasingly global market.

Meanwhile, the main driver is elsewhere: U.S. corporations' demand for clean power has surged 100-fold in the past decade, according to a recent report from the trade group American Clean Power, as solar and wind power costs have fallen substantially due to increased competition and efficiencies.

As S&P Global reported in a June 2024 note, "As of this year, corporate renewable procurement capacity continues to show momentum, with 15.8 GW (gigawatt) contracted in the first quarter, growing 36% year on year. Europe led in capacity, while the Asia-Pacific region led in the number of deals. In terms of countries, corporates have been particularly active in the U.S., Australia and India."

With that in mind, here are nine of the best green energy stocks for investors looking to profit on the still-growing trend toward sustainability.

Data is as of June 11. Price target data is provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence.

• Sector: Industrials
• Industry: Specialty industrial machinery
• Market value: $132.0 billion
• Median price target: $451.24 (6.7% implied downside)

The name "General Electric" does not exactly evoke the image of renewable energy. But the April 2024 division of the venerable industrial conglomerate's remains into two separate businesses has changed all that.

GE Vernova (GEV, $483.47) incorporates the old General Electric's operations in renewables, power, digital and energy financial services under the leadership of CEO Scott Strazik.

The spinoff accomplished GE's goal of dividing itself into three companies focused on energy, aviation and health care.

The other entity created a little more than a year ago, GE Aerospace (GE), includes the aviation assets. The spinoff of GE HealthCare Technologies (GEHC) was completed in early 2023.

Vernova's focus, Strazik says, is on addressing climate change and fostering sustainable development.

Its businesses include onshore wind turbines with rated capacities of two to six megawatts (MW) for different environments, offshore wind with six- to fourteen- MW capacities for tougher conditions, hydropower generation, hybrid renewable energy and storage, grid solutions and related solutions.

The Inflation Reduction Act provided a lift for Vernova, as it did for other green energy stocks, despite questions about its long-term viability in a second Trump administration.

As Morningstar analyst Joshua Aguilar noted at the time of the spinoff, "Favorable U.S. legislation provides a backdrop of more certainty around timing of wind-related projects, and a combination of better project selectivity, a focus on the North American market, and rightsizing should help drive the profits GE investors have long been clamoring for."

Since its spring 2024 debut on the New York Stock Exchange, GEV stock is up more than 255%.

Noting GE Vernova is "well positioned to capitalize on growing electricity demand" in a note on the stock's recent performance, Morningstar's Brett Castelli observes, "Shares are up nearly 50% year to date, handily outperforming the broad market, as outer-year financial expectations continue to increase."

Explaining that its current valuation "adequately reflects future revenue growth and margin expansion," Castelli concludes GEV shares are "overvalued following the rally in recent weeks."

• Sector: Utilities
• Industry: Utilities – renewable
• Market value: $7.37 billion
• Median price target: $28.46 (9.9% implied upside)

Brookfield Renewable Partners (BEP, $25.92) is a renewable energy company that operates hydroelectric, wind, utility-scale solar and storage facilities in North and South America, Europe and Asia.

Brookfield Renewable has a track record of investing in and operating high-quality renewable energy assets. It's part of Brookfield Asset Management, which manages more than $1 trillion in assets.

"The fundamentals for energy remain very strong, with digitalization and re-industrialization driving accelerating demand that far outpaces supply," management notes in its first-quarter interim report.

"This imbalance persists despite weaker market sentiment due to uncertainty of the impacts of tariffs globally. Despite this, renewables represent the most viable solution to meet the insatiable demand for energy given their low-cost position, mature supply chain and ability to be deployed quickly in almost any region"

Brookfield has also positioned itself to benefit from a renaissance in the nuclear power industry promised by Trump.

Brookfield and its institutional partners formed a strategic partnership with Cameco (CCJ) to acquire Westinghouse, one of the world's largest nuclear services businesses, for $7.9 billion in 2023.

According to Brookfield, nuclear power and hydroelectricity are "the only forms of clean, dispatchable, baseload power generation and will be a key enabler of the rapid growth of intermittent solar and wind."

Westinghouse services about half the global nuclear power generation sector and is the original equipment manufacturer to more than half of the global nuclear reactor fleet. Brookfield and its partners own 51% of Westinghouse, while Cameco holds 49%.

"Westinghouse is well positioned to capture the increasing global tailwinds for nuclear," according to Brookfield.

• Sector: Consumer discretionary
• Industry: Auto manufacturers
• Market value: $1.1 trillion
• Median price target: $299.14 (8.4% implied downside)

The share price of Tesla (TSLA, $326.43) surged in the aftermath of Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, with CEO Elon Musk playing a prominent role in both the campaign and the transition period ahead of the January 20, 2025, inauguration.

TSLA suffered some as Musk acquired Twitter, turned it into X and extended his reach into social media and politics. His bet on Trump — "a poker move for the ages," according to Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities — appears to another volatile venture.

The Trump administration plan to eliminate tax credits for EV purchases would likely benefit Musk's company, as Kiplinger's Kelley Taylor writes. "Tesla representatives have expressed support for ending the subsidy to Trump's transition committee. This may seem counterintuitive but seems to align with CEO Elon Musk's previous statements."

Still, TSLA has traded as high as $429.80 (January 15) and as low as $214.25 (April 7) so far in 2025.

Some of that price action is about Tesla's operational progress, including the anticipated release of its robotaxi. A lot of TSLA volatility is simply about CEO Elon Musk and his up-and-down relationship with Trump.

One of the largest battery electric vehicle automakers in the world, Tesla is well positioned to grow its solar panel and storage businesses in similar fashion.

But Tesla stock has other drivers now.

"We believe Trump in the White House changes the landscape for Elon Musk and Tesla," Ives said during a post-election appearance on CNBC.

Ives said then Musk's "major strategic bet" could prove "very bullish for Tesla’s AI/autonomous story."

Reflecting his bullish view on Trump's victory and its potential impact on Musk's company, Ives raised his price target for TSLA from $300 to $400.

Ives has raised that target as high as $550 in 2025. He's also cut it as low as $315 amid a "massive feud over social media" between the CEO and the president.

"The vast majority of valuation upside for Tesla depends on the success of its autonomous vision," Ives emphasized in a June 6 note. "Therefore, a cooperative relationship with Trump will be essential for securing the federal framework needed to support that vision."

Ives believes Tesla has a path toward a $2 trillion valuation driven by full self-driving, widespread adoption of autonomy, and the U.S. rollout of its Cybercab service.

• Sector: Utilities
• Industry: Utilities – regulated electric
• Market value: $150.7 billion
• Median price target: $80.71 (10.6% implied upside)

NextEra Energy (NEE, $73) is typically found on lists of the best green energy stocks to buy.

The world's largest producer of wind and solar energy, NextEra also owns Florida Power & Light, the biggest electric utility in the U.S., providing clean electricity to more than 12 million people.

It's a corporate leader in sustainability, having been awarded the S&P 500 Global Platts 2020 Energy Transition Award for ESG leadership.

The utility stock was a primary beneficiary of the IRA, which CEO John Ketchum described as "transformational for our industry and our business" when it was passed.

Ketchum and NextEra Energy expected tax credits for wind, solar and storage to remain in place. But management continues to find ways to grow its business.

NextEra Energy Resources continues to add new renewable and storage projects to its backlog.

Management also completed agreements with two Fortune 50 customers for the potential development of renewables and storage projects totaling up to 10.5 gigawatts between now and 2030.

NextEra Energy Transmission has also secured contracts to build transmission projects in the PJM Interconnection, California Independent System Operator and Southwest Power Pool footprints that will roughly double the size of its transmission investments. Management expects rapid growth in electricity demand from data centers supporting generative AI.

Highlighting the opportunity that increased power demand is bringing to the utility sector, management said NextEra "will be disappointed if we are not able to deliver financial results at or near the top of our adjusted earnings per share expectations ranges each year through 2027, while maintaining our strong balance sheet and credit ratings."

NEE has enjoyed a solid 2025 despite the political uncertainty of the IRA, rising 3.5% amid surging data-center demand for power and outperforming the S&P 500 year to date.

NextEra is also one of the best dividend stocks, with Ketchum saying the company expects to raise its dividend by 10% a year through "at least" 2026.

• Sector: Technology
• Industry: Solar
• Market value: $734.7 million
• Median price target: $12.97 (18.1% implied upside)

Canadian Solar (CSIQ, $10.98) has had a rough couple of years but remains one of Wall Street's best green energy stocks for the long term.

CSIQ is a solar power company that provides integrated solutions that include solar-power products, services and systems. It's one of the world's largest makers of solar photovoltaic products, as well as one of the largest solar-power plant developers. Canadian Solar sells to utilities, businesses and consumers.

Canadian Solar says it's delivered more than 125 GW of solar modules to thousands of customers in more than 160 countries with another 26 GW of solar projects and 56 gigawatt hours (GWh) of storage projects in the pipeline.

A combination of high interest rates making new projects prohibitively expensive plus policy changes at the state level has limited growth in residential solar demand.

Changes to California's Net Energy Metering program and similar moves by other states reduced financial incentives for going solar. With those impacts now priced in, the Solar Energy Industries Association forecast annual growth for the residential solar market will average 9% from 2025 through 2030.

CSIQ's revenue has doubled since 2019, from $3.2 billion to $6.5 billion for fiscal 2024.

The share price reached a multiyear low in April amid the broader post-"Liberation Day" stock market sell-off and the aftermath of another less-than-stellar earnings report.

CEO Shawn Qu remains optimistic. Noting operational and financial headwinds created by "intense" competition and ongoing policy and trade-related uncertainty, Qu said in the company's fiscal 2024 fourth-quarter earnings announcement that Canadian Solar's modules business helped it "maintain relatively stronger profitability compared to the broader market."

Qu added that the green energy stock remains "fully committed to the U.S. market" and continues to expand solar module, solar cell and energy storage manufacturing capacity at three facilities.

• Sector: Technology
• Industry: Solar
• Market value: $1.2 billion
• Median price target: $15.40 (26.1% implied downside)

SolarEdge Technologies (SEDG, $20.83) is featured among the best green energy stocks because it's the largest maker of solar inverters. Solar inverters convert direct current from solar panels into alternating currents used in homes and electrical grids.

According to Morningstar analyst Brett Castelli, SolarEdge's DC optimizer is the leader in solar residential rooftop installations; the company has expanded its sales to include business and utility clients.

Because a majority of the company's revenue comes from Europe, SolarEdge was well-positioned to navigate a slowdown in U.S. residential solar demand "as California NEM 3.0 takes effect," Castelli said in a research note.

California's Net Energy Metering (NEM) policy calls for homeowners to get credit when their solar panels push excess electricity onto the grid when the sun is shining. This credit offsets the cost of electricity they use at nightfall.

Under NEM 3.0, the rates homeowners receive are 75% lower than before. This means less savings for the homeowner and a drag on solar panel sales.

Beyond inverters, SEDG has expanded into e-mobility and uninterrupted power supply markets. The analyst notes that e-mobility might be a big and growing market, but it requires more capital, carries execution risk and takes a long time to generate meaningful revenue.

It was a difficult 2024 for SolarEdge stock, which shed nearly 75% of its value before CEO Zvi Lando announced his resignation in August.

SolarEdge named a new CEO, Shuki Nir, in December. Nir had been the company's chief marketing officer since June 2024.

The appointment followed a November 28 announcement that SolarEdge closed its utility-scale battery storage division to focus on solar photovoltaics (PV) and cut its employee headcount by about 12%.

The green energy stock has responded, rising more than 50% in 2025.

Castelli says SolarEdge will suffer less harm than other solar companies from legislation that would eliminate rooftop solar incentives and accelerate the phaseout of other renewables incentives.

• Sector: Consumer discretionary
• Industry: Auto manufacturers
• Market value: $47.9 billion
• Median price target: $54.15 (8.6% implied upside)

Why is General Motors (GM, $49.87) on this list of the best green energy stocks to buy? Because the carmaker is going all in on an electric future.

The company said that it plans to invest $35 billion in electric vehicle and autonomous vehicle (AV) production through 2025. By mid-decade, GM plans to sell a million EVs a year in North America.

GM also deepened its investment in AV company Cruise, buying SoftBank's stake for $2.1 billion and pouring in another $1.4 billion. Cruise develops self-driving cars for ridesharing and delivery.

In December, GM announced a plan to scrap the Origin robotaxi project and combine Cruise with its existing technical teams for a focused effort on autonomous and assisted driving

GM, which sells vehicles under the Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, Baojun and Wuling brands, also jointly developed its Ultium battery platform with South Korea's LG Energy Solution to mass produce battery cells.

GM is projecting that its next-gen Ultium packs will cost 60% less than existing batteries in use today with double the energy density. GM is reusing or recycling these batteries.

GM continues to transition to a fully electric future and still plans to phase out gas and diesel engines and offer only EVs by 2035.

Its strategy involves significant investment in EV technology, infrastructure and manufacturing.

• Sector: Consumer discretionary
• Industry: Internet retail
• Market value: $2.3 trillion
• Median price target: $239.22 (12.2% implied upside)

E-commerce giant Amazon.com (AMZN, $213.20) joins the list of green energy stocks to consider because it is far and away the largest buyer of clean energy in the U.S., according to trade group American Clean Power.

"Corporate buyers are a critical part of the energy transition" in America from fossil fuels to clean energy, the trade group's report said.

"Their accelerated buying of clean energy provides an important source of demand, while their efforts to decarbonize their products and services puts pressure on their supply chain to do the same."

In 2023, Amazon invested in more than 100 new wind and solar projects. Its renewable power purchase agreement capacity in 2024 was 34 GW.

Once its more than 500 wind and solar projects are operational, Amazon expects to produce 77,000 GWh of clean energy on an annual basis, enough to power 7.2 million homes.

Moreover, Amazon said it is on track to meet its 100% clean energy goal five years earlier than the 2030 it previously projected.

What's more, Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge in 2019, which commits companies to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 or a decade earlier than the Paris Agreement.

• Sector: Utilities
• Industry: Utilities – renewable
• Market value: $18.1 billion
• Median price target: $13.17 (8.5% implied downside)

Ørsted (DNNGY, $14.40) is the largest multinational power company in Denmark. After selling its oil and gas fields in 2017, the company is now focused on renewables.

The company develops, constructs and operates wind farms, solar farms, energy storage facilities, renewable hydrogen and green fuels facilities and bioenergy plants.

Ørsted operates 9.9 GW of offshore wind farms, with the biggest concentration of operations in the U.K.

It has the largest portfolio of offshore wind farm projects in Europe and continues to ramp up its American presence.

Ørsted owns and operates the first U.S. offshore wind project, the Block Island Wind Farm, which replaced five diesel generators and now powers 17,000 homes in Rhode Island.

It's developing 5 GW of offshore wind capacity in Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey and New York, as well as 4 GW of onshore wind, solar and storage projects in Texas, the Midwest and the Southeast.

In addition to being one of Wall Street's best green energy stocks, DNNGY was also named the world's most sustainable company in 2022 by Corporate Knight's 2022 Global 100 Index.

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U.S. stocks opened the day in negative territory and losses accelerated as the session wore on.

Earnings remained in focus, and several of today's reactions were negative. General Electric (GE), for instance, spiraled downward 10.3% after its results. While the industrial conglomerate beat on the top and bottom lines in its first quarter, CEO Lawrence Culp warned the company is "trending toward the low end" of its full-year guidance as it continues "to work through inflation and other evolving pressures."

JetBlue Airways (JBLU), meanwhile, shed 11.4% after the air carrier's plans to reduce capacity growth in the short term offset a narrower-than-expected first-quarter loss. JBLU's post-earnings decline pressured fellow airline stocks, with Alaska Air Group (ALK, -4.6%), Southwest Airlines (LUV, -3.0%) and Delta Air Lines (DAL, -3.2%) all finishing notably lower.

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The selling was broad-based, with consumer discretionary (-5.1%) and technology (-3.7%) the two hardest hit sectors. Only energy gained ground, adding 0.1% as U.S. crude futures climbed 3.2% to $101.70 per barrel.

At the close, the Nasdaq Composite was down 4.0% at 12,490 – its worst day since September 2020 – the S&P 500 Index was off 2.8% at 4,175 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 2.4% lower at 33,240.

Other news in the stock market today:

• The small-cap Russell 2000 gave back 3.3% to 1,890.
• Gold futures gained 0.4% to settle at $1,904.10 an ounce.
• Bitcoin retreated 5.9% to $37,918.63. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m.) "Bitcoin was tentatively back above the $40,000 level as Wall Street became more optimistic with the long-term outlook for cryptocurrencies after reports that Fidelity Investments will allow Bitcoin into 401(k)s," says Edward Moya, senior market strategist at currency data provider OANDA. "Bitcoin reversed lower as risk aversion returned to Wall Street; Russia's suspension of gas supplies to Poland sent risky assets, including Bitcoin, sharply lower."
• Sherwin-Williams (SHW) jumped 9.4% after the paints and coatings retailer reported first-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.61 per share and revenue of $5 billion, both figures higher than analysts were expecting. SHW also reaffirmed its full-year guidance for adjusted earnings of $9.25 to $9.65 per share. "Our team delivered results in line with our expectations in an environment characterized by strong demand, ongoing cost inflation and choppy raw material availability that improved meaningfully in the final weeks of the quarter," said John Morikis, CEO of Sherwin-Williams, in the company's earnings release.
• United Parcel Service (UPS) slipped 3.5% after the delivery giant reported earnings. In its first quarter, UPS recorded adjusted earnings of $3.05 per share and revenue of $24.4 billion, higher than consensus estimates. The company also reiterated its full-year guidance, though CEO Carol Tome cautioned that we're not likely to see the same kind of e-commerce growth witnessed during the pandemic going forward. Argus Research analyst John Eade (Buy) said weakness in the stock represents a "buying opportunity," and that the company "remains well positioned to benefit from a number of positive trends."

What Wall Street's Saying About Social Media Stocks

One notable decliner in today's trading: Twitter (TWTR). Shares retreated 3.9% to $49.68– one day after the company's board of directors approved Elon Musk's $44-billion, or $54.20 per-share, buyout of the platform.

News that the Tesla (TSLA) CEO is taking TWTR private has narrowed the field of social media stocks, but analysts are still upbeat about the few remaining primary players.

Case in point: S&P Global Market Intelligence pegs the average analyst price target for Facebook parent Meta Platforms (FB) – which joins Twitter on this week's tech-focused earnings calendar – at $315.51, implying 44% potential upside from current levels.

Today, we take a closer look at the social media stocks to watch post-Twitter and break down why Wall Street's pros are so bullish on the group. Take a look.

Buy-and-hold dividend investors may be forgiven if they feel like they're having déjà vu all over again. After all, if it seems like many of our most iconic blue-chip dividend payers are getting smaller by the day ... well, it's because they are.

Healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson (JNJ, $163.06) announced Friday its intention to split itself into two separate companies, joining an increasingly long list of illustrious firms that are breaking up to boost growth.

The move comes just a day after General Electric (GE, $107.00) said it would cleave itself into three firms over the next few years.

The trend hardly ends there. In fact, there's no shortage of Dow stocks, former Dow stocks, S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats (companies that have increased their payouts annually for at least 25 years) and other dividend stalwarts that are trying to achieve addition by division.

More on that in a moment.

Johnson & Johnson’s Plan

In the most recent case, Johnson & Johnson plans to break off its consumer health business – the one that makes Tylenol, Band-Aid and Listerine – from its pharmaceutical and medical devices units. Those latter two businesses will retain the Johnson & Johnson name and be more closely aligned with each other, JNJ says.

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J&J’s intent – as is pretty much always the case with these sorts of breakups – is to liberate faster-growth, higher-margin businesses from the drag of slower-growth, lower-margin businesses.

We've been seeing a lot of this lately, especially with some of investors' favorite blue-chip dividend stocks, which J&J certainly qualifies as. This Dow Jones component is as reliable a dividend grower as they come. It's also a member of the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats, having increased its payout for 59 consecutive years.

It remains to be seen which of the resultant companies would inherit J&J’s Dividend Aristocrats membership card.

Big, Blue-Chip Breakups

As for General Electric, which announced its own separation just a day before the JNJ news, sure, it ain't what it used to be. But it still fits with the trend. It's an iconic dividend stock, and was an original member of the Dow, dating back to 1896. True, GE was dropped from the Dow in 2018, but it has retained at least some of its blue-chip luster.

Then there's Big Blue. International Business Machines (IBM, $120.27) is both a Dow stock and a member of the Dividend Aristocrats, with a 26-year dividend-growth streak of its own. It bulked up big time with its $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat in 2019. The deal is supposed to help the legacy technology company compete in the lucrative cloud-based services industry. And so IBM's spinoff of its boring managed infrastructure services unit – called Kyndryl Holdings (KD, $21.30) – was a logical next step.

Or consider the case of AT&T (T, $24.92). T is no longer in the Dow, having been removed from the average (for the third time in its history) in 2015. Although it's still a Dividend Aristocrat by dint of 36 straight years of dividend growth, that streak appears to be coming to an end. The telecommunications giant spun off both DirecTV and WarnerMedia earlier this year. Without contributions from those businesses, AT&T's dividend will naturally have to come down, analysts say.

Getting back to the healthcare sector, Merck (MRK, $84.02) is a Dow stock with a decade of annual dividend growth to its credit. Earlier this year, the pharmaceutical giant spun off its women's health business as publicly traded Organon (ORG, $34.72).

Indeed, JNJ is really just following in the footsteps of Merck and former Dow stock Pfizer (PFE, $50.18), both of which have already moved to free themselves from their less profitable businesses. Pfizer, for example, spun off Upjohn in 2020 and merged it with Mylan to form Viatris (VTRS, $14.46).

Viatris' portfolio includes some of the best-selling drugs of all time, such as Lipitor and Viagra. But mature, off-patent medications aren't known for their spectacular margin and growth profiles.

We could go on, but the bottom line for dividend investors is that the multifaceted companies that once produced both income and growth are increasingly being split to unlock value. And in turn, that’s forcing investors to decide which parts of these legacy companies (if any) to continue holding.

Share prices are as of Nov. 11.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average will lose its longest-standing component as part of the blue-chip index's biggest shakeup in years.

S&P Dow Jones Indices, the global index provider that oversees the Dow Jones Industrial Average, announced late Monday that the venerable index will replace three of its components as of the market open on Monday, Aug. 31.

The move was made in part to "diversify the index by removing overlap between companies of similar scope and adding new types of businesses that better reflect the American economy."

Joining the Dow will be:

• Customer relationship management specialist Salesforce.com (CRM)
• Biotech firm Amgen (AMGN)
• Industrial conglomerate Honeywell International (HON)

Leaving the DJIA will be:

• Big Pharma firm Pfizer (PFE), which joined the Dow in 2004
• Raytheon Technologies (RTX), one of the resulting companies from the Raytheon-United Technologies merger and subsequent spinoffs, which has been a part of the Dow in some form since 1939
• Integrated energy major Exxon Mobil (XOM), which joined the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1928 and was the industrial average's longest-lasting component

The Dow has announced one-off changes over the past few years, such as Apple's (AAPL) replacement of AT&T (T) in 2015, and Walgreens Boots Alliance's (WBA) replacement of General Electric (GE) in 2018. But this is the largest multi-component swap since 2013, when Goldman Sachs (GS), Nike (NKE) and Visa (V) replaced Alcoa (AA), Bank of America (BAC) and Hewlett-Packard.

Apple's Part in the Dow's Reconstitution

Kiplinger previously pointed out that Apple's upcoming 4-for-1 stock split could have a negative effect on the Dow, and indeed, S&P Dow Jones Indices cited the split as its reason for taking action.

"The index changes were prompted by DJIA constituent Apple Inc.'s decision to split its stock 4:1, which will reduce the index's weight in the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) Information Technology sector," writes S&P Dow Jones Indices. "The announced changes help offset that reduction."

Remember: The Dow Jones Industrial Average is weighted by price, which means the higher the nominal share price, the more effect the stock has on the index's performance. This stands in contrast to the S&P 500 and many other major indices, which are weighted by market value – the more valuable the company, the higher its index weight.

Apple currently is the largest component of the Dow by virtue of its $500-plus share price, which is almost $200 per share more than the second-largest component, UnitedHealth Group (UNH). However, once AAPL shares start trading on a split-adjusted basis Aug. 31, that price will drop down to about $125 per share.

"Overall, the Apple split alone will reduce the weighting of information technology from 27.63%, down to 20.35%," says Howard Silverblatt, Senior Index Analyst for S&P Dow Jones Indices. "On an issue basis, Apple will decline to a 3.36% weighting from their pre-split 12.20% (a 72.48% reduction), as the reallocation will increase the weight of each of the other 29 issues by 10.07%."

In other words, despite being a nearly $2 trillion company, Apple will be relegated to the middle of the pack, as the 17th-largest holding, because of its share price. That forced S&P Dow Jones Indices to make some sort of change to better represent the American economy.

Tech Is King, Energy Is Sapped

Information technology has become the market's most dominant sector at more than 28% of the S&P 500. Apple's reduction in value prompted the Dow to add more weight to tech, which it did via Salesforce.com. CRM shares, at nearly $210 per share, will become the sixth-largest Dow component at roughly 5% of the industrial average's weight.

The Dow also addressed a need in health care, which is the second-largest sector at 14.2% of the S&P 500's weight. The DJIA added Amgen – the maker of Enbrel and Neulasta, which trades around $235 per share currently – in lieu of Pfizer, a massive pharmaceutical by market value, but the Dow's smallest component thanks to a roughly $39 share price.

Meanwhile, adding Honeywell (~$160 per share) gives the Dow a little more exposure to industrials than Raytheon Technology (~$62 per share).

But perhaps S&P Dow Jones Indices' most noteworthy move was cutting its exposure to the energy sector by booting Exxon Mobil, the Dow's longest-tenured component. That leaves Chevron (CVX) as the index's lone remaining energy holding.

Energy has dwindled in importance in recent years thanks to multiple commodity-price shocks and the resulting drops in its components' value. The sector, off 34% year-to-date as a sector, currently is the smallest slice of the S&P 500 pie at just 2.4%.

Still, while the Dow might paint a more accurate picture of the economy by dropping XOM, the index also loses a part of its rich history.

"Integrated oil and gas giant ExxonMobil has been a member of the Dow since Oct. 1, 1928, which is when the index was expanded from 20 components to 30 components," S&P Dow Jones Indices writes. "However, in the records of this historical event, Exxon's name is nowhere to be found: Back in 1928, the company was known as Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey. The company wasn't unveiled to the world as 'Exxon' until 1972, and it didn't become ExxonMobil until its megamerger with Mobil in 1999."

Volatile markets can sometimes drive investors into the assumed safety of large-cap stocks. But a warning: Not every big company can help you weather the storm.

September is a notoriously difficult month for the stock market. That’s without considering the current risks related to the ongoing U.S.-China trade war, or flashing recession signals, or other economic hurdles popping up around the globe.

“The global macroeconomic picture continues to show fragility,” writes Northern Trust Wealth Management CIO Katie Nixon. “We expect overall growth to trend lower under the weight of growing trade uncertainty.”

While investors might find shelter in big, blue-chip companies, you must be able to tell the difference between high-quality large caps and simply high-market-value large caps. The pros are here to help.

Here are seven large-cap stocks to sell or avoid, according to Wall Street analysts. TipRanks, which collects ratings from roughly 15,000 Wall Street analysts, has honed in on a list of companies that are well-known but not particularly well-loved right now. We’ll look into just how bearish sentiment is, and why the experts say you should avoid some of them, and boot the rest if you own them.

Data is as of Sept. 5. Stocks listed in reverse order of upside/downside potential, as calculated from analysts’ consensus price target.

• Market value: $76.9 billion
• TipRanks consensus price target: $9.81 (11% upside potential)
• TipRanks consensus rating: Hold

Embattled multinational General Electric (GE, $8.81) looked like it was finally stabilizing for most of this year. However, a recent report alleging accounting fraud “bigger than Enron” – a controversial one that some analysts are skeptical about – rattled prices over the past month.

In August, investigator Harry Markopolos – the whistleblower that helped blow open Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme – accused General Electric of accounting fraud worth $38 billion, which GE categorically denied. He alleges there are accounting issues in GE’s long-term care insurance unit and Baker Hughes oil-and-gas unit, among other points.

Deutsche Bank’s Nicole DeBlase is among the analysts who are skeptical about the report’s doomsday tone. “We find some of its arguments to be weak while others are plainly incorrect,” she writes, adding, “We find ourselves in the unenviable position of having to defend the reserve adequacy of a business about whose future claim projections we have very deep concerns.”

Still, General Electric has more problems than most large-cap stocks, with or without the report. Several analysts have GE among their stocks to sell as a result.

For instance, JPMorgan’s Stephen Tusa (Underweight, equivalent of Sell) described the company’s recent Q2 earnings report as “low quality.” He made the call despite GE’s earnings beat and instructed clients to sell into strength. Results reflect that “the company may have fewer options than many think, forcing a protracted, drawn-out approach to the problems, a negative given cycle timing, and at odds with the message of urgency from last fall,” he writes.

Gordon Haskett’s John Inch reiterated his Underperform rating (equivalent of Sell), calling the earnings “a modest step backward versus expectations.” Analysts also said the departure of CFO Jaime Miller, after less than two years in the role, is a worrying signal for investors. “We wonder about all these things, especially if things really are looking up, as management contends,” comments Gimme Credit analyst Carol Levenson, who also rates GE at Underperform.

And despite the 11% upside implied by the current consensus price target, recent ratings aren’t encouraging. Over the past three months, three analysts say GE is a Buy – while six say Hold and three more say Sell. Get the full scoop on General Electric’s analyst consensus at TipRanks.

• Market value: $41.1 billion
• TipRanks consensus price target: $245.62 (7% upside potential)
• TipRanks consensus rating: Moderate Sell

Controversial auto stock Tesla (TSLA, $229.58) has lost almost a third of its value since the start of 2019. And Wall Street doesn’t think a significant turnaround is coming anytime soon.

Tesla’s current price target implies single-digit upside, but based on all the ratings received over the past three months, TSLA is actually a Moderate Sell consensus. While seven analysts are on the Buy side, six say Hold and 14 have advised investors to abandon ship. The latter camp includes CFRA’s Garrett Nelson, who downgraded the stock from Sell to Strong Sell and lowered his price target from $150 to $135 (41% implied downside).

The most recent wave of bearish ratings were sparked by Tesla’s poor second-quarter financial report. Auto revenue came in 4% below consensus expectations. Non-GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) were 19.2% well below estimates for 20.5%. “Not a lot to like,” writes RBC Capital’s Joseph Spak. “Softer (gross margins) with an unclear path to see them higher, larger loss than expected, vaguer guidance and CTO departure.”

Spak reiterated his Underperform rating with a $190 price target (21% downside), calling current assumptions “too high.” In an ominous note, he adds, “We see TSLA entering a period that won’t screen well for growth.” Despite CEO Elon Musk indicating that the third quarter will be breakeven and that the company will generate a profit in Q4, Spak doesn’t see profitability until 2021.

UBS analyst Colin Langan and Needham’s Rajvindra Gill have similarly bearish opinions. Langan reiterated his Sell call with a low $160 price target following earnings, writing, “Second-quarter results support our view that Tesla will not be profitable in the mid-term … we remain cautious on deliveries and margins in the second half, as well as Model S/X weakness.” Gill, who also has TSLA among his stocks to sell, chimed in, “We are cautious on Tesla’s ability to fulfill these goals as the ramp requires a significant snapback in the second half of 2019.” Discover more TSLA insights from the Street at TipRanks.

• Market value: $32.4 billion
• TipRanks consensus price target: $29.90 (2% upside potential)
• TipRanks consensus rating: Hold

Large-cap stocks in the consumer staples space are considered among the safest plays in a volatile market. But the Street’s message on Kraft Heinz (KHC, $29.30) is clear: steer clear.

Shares have cratered 37% this year. In the past three months, Kraft – a rare whiff for Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) CEO Warren Buffett – has received only Hold and Sell ratings over the past three months. Its last Buy rating came in March.

Why? The company unleashed a horde of issues in February when it announced its fourth-quarter results. Earnings and revenues missed expectations, but those were only mild concerns. Kraft Heinz also said it had to write down $15.4 billion worth of value in brands such as Oscar Mayer and Kraft. It cut its dividend. It also announced that the SEC was investigating one division’s accounting practices. Later this year, CEO Miguel Patricio withdrew full-year guidance, saying there was “significant work ahead” to get back on track.

Credit Suisse analyst Robert Moskow reiterated his Undeperform rating on KHC shortly after the latter development, with his $26 price target implying 13% downside from current prices. “While we appreciated CEO Patricio’s promises for more ‘straight talk’ with the Street, we view the decision to withdraw 2019 guidance as a tactical error,” he writes. More transparency is needed, not less, Moskow says – especially after the company’s recent SEC investigation.

Moskow advises caution here. “Meat and cheese cost inflation is about to get very challenging, retailers are reducing their inventory on Kraft’s brands, and the company is in the early stages of evaluating more investments in capabilities to return to sustainable growth.” These issues suggest further downward revisions ahead, he writes.

Guggenheim’s Laurent Grandet reiterated his Sell rating near the end of August “given the enormity of the task ahead and the uncertainty around the ultimate success of a potential turnaround.” This bearish call came with a price target of just $25 and a warning that “Kraft Heinz will need to rebase and over-invest starting next year, sell assets, and further reduce the dividend.” See why other top analysts are worried about KHC.

• Market value: $209.8 billion
• TipRanks consensus price target: $48.22 (1% upside potential)
• TipRanks consensus rating: Hold

Despite reporting a recent headline earnings beat, Wall Street is taking a cautious approach when it comes to Wells Fargo (WFC, $47.62) – perhaps unsurprising given the number of scandals Wells has compiled over the past few years.

Wells Fargo reported second-quarter earnings of $1.30 per share, which included a $721 million gain on the sale of $1.9 billion in Pick-a-Pay PCI loans. Excluding this item, core EPS turned out to be just $1.17, marginally topping the $1.16 consensus estimate.

Net interest income (essentially the difference between interest collected on products such as mortgages and interest paid out on products such as savings accounts) slipped by $446 million year-over-year to $12.1 billion, missing the Street’s $12.2 billion estimate. Net interest margin – a key indicator of a bank’s profitability and growth – dropped to 2.82% from 2.93% in the year-ago period.

“Though WFC has one of the premier banking franchises in the U.S., the company reported a lackluster quarter,” writes five-star RBC Capital analyst Gerard Cassidy. “The company had weaker-than-expected 2Q19 performance and guided net interest income toward the lower end of its previously disclosed range for 2019 and backed away from $1-2 billion reduction in 2020 expenses relative to 2019’s level.”

The higher expense guidance prompted Macquarie’s David Konrad to downgrade the stock. “We are downgrading WFC to Neutral given higher expense guidance driving a 12% cut in our (2020 estimates), leaving a valuation now at a 5% premium to (Bank of America),” he writes.

Wells Fargo has suffered five downgrades in five months, with Wolfe Research and Atlantic Equities also knocking WFC down to Sell-equivalent ratings. What are other financial experts saying about WFC’s outlook? Find out now on TipRanks.

• Market value: $10.5 billion
• TipRanks consensus price target: $263.00 (4% downside potential)
• TipRanks consensus rating: Moderate Sell

The widest swath of analyst moves are to reiterate previous ratings, so it’s always worth keeping watch over downgrades and upgrades. In the case of financial data firm FactSet Research Systems (FDS, $273.84), the stock has been hit by lowered ratings from both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Overall, over the past month, the firm has received just six ratings: three Holds, and three Sells.

The $263 average price target suggests a modest pullback of 4% over the next 12 months, which itself is worrying. However, Goldman Sachs’ George Tong is even more pessimistic, seeing 10% downside ($246 target) from current levels.

Tong says FactSet must overcome significant “secular challenges” in the financial services end-market. That’s because of the double whammy of MiFID II (financial industry reform) implementation across Europe, and the ongoing shift from active to passive asset management. As a result of this “pressured client spending environment,” he sees FDS facing “structurally lower revenue growth.”

Morgan Stanley’s Toni Kaplan also recommends investing your money elsewhere. He says FactSet’s decelerating EPS growth leaves the price-to-earnings valuation full on a stock that already has advanced 38% year-to-date. Looking ahead, Kaplan expects the P/E multiple to contract as earnings growth continues to slow. Find out how the Street’s average price target for FDS breaks down.

• Market value: $35.0 billion
• TipRanks consensus price target: $41.49 (9% downside potential)
• TipRanks consensus rating: Hold
• Twitter (TWTR, $45.30) – one of just a few large-cap stocks in the social media space – pleasantly surprised the market by reporting Street-beating revenues and daily active user (DAU) growth of 14% year-over-year. Even the post-earnings conference call was conducted with an upbeat tone.

That wasn’t enough to convince Barclays analyst Ross Sandler to get excited about TWTR shares. Far from it. He reiterated his Underweight rating (equivalent of Sell), and while he marginally boosted his price target from $33 per share to $34, that still implies 25% downside from current prices. That’s plenty worse than the average analyst price target of $41.49, implying a still-discouraging 9% decline.

Sandler cited large GAAP operating losses and a premium EV/EBITDA multiple (enterprise value/earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) compared to Facebook (FB) and Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL). He did concede that execution remained solid, however, and that “TWTR’s growth trajectory should improve in 2020 as comps ease and the heavier event calendar (Olympics and Elections) enters the fray.”

MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson highlights the stock’s lofty valuation as particularly problematic. “Twitter still does not seem to be doing enough to secure its platform, while its valuation remains as stretched as ever,” he writes. And with Twitter approaching difficult revenue comparisons for the upcoming third-quarter result, “now seems to be an especially opportune time to sell.” You can check out other current pro opinions on TWTR at TipRanks.

• Market value: $16.1 billion
• TipRanks consensus price target: $7.04 (10% downside potential)
• TipRanks consensus rating: Moderate Sell

Wall Street has a very pessimistic outlook on German multinational financial large-cap stock Deutsche Bank (DB, $7.82) right now. Not only does the stock show a Moderate Sell consensus with not a single Buy rating over the past three months, but the current consensus price target indicates double-digit downside risk.

Barclays, Credit Suisse and HSBC are just some of the firms recommending investors drop DB.

One analyst taking a notably bearish approach to Deutsche Bank is RBC Capital’s Anke Reingen. She has an Underperform rating on the stock, with a “Speculative Risk” warning attached. “Our Speculative Risk qualifier reflects the lack of visibility on earnings, valuation, and the resultant higher volatility in the share price,” the analyst explains.

Reingen writes that Deutsche Bank reported weaker-than-expected second-quarter results, hampered by 3.4 billion euros in restructuring costs. The net loss of 3.15 billion euros was far wider than anticipated.

“We have already taken significant steps to implement our strategy to transform Deutsche Bank,” CEO Christian Sewing wrote in the release. “A substantial part of our restructuring costs is already digested in the second quarter. Excluding transformation charges the bank would be profitable and in our more stable businesses revenues were flat or growing.”

But Reingen cautions investors, “It is likely to be a long road until we have visibility on the many stepping stones.” She notes that the targeted 2022 ROTE (return on tangible equity) is 8%. “If the target is delivered, there could be significant upside in the shares. However, we believe the near-term profitability will remain low; in fact, on our estimates the transformation leads to a deterioration.”

See what other top analysts have to say about DB on TipRanks.

Harriet Lefton is head of content at TipRanks, a comprehensive investing tool that tracks more than 5,000 Wall Street analysts as well as hedge funds and insiders. You can find more of their stock insights here.

When you evaluate dividend stocks, what do you typically look at? Chances are, dividend yield is a big part of the equation, though many investors also know to look at dividend growth. But what about dividend health?

Dividend stocks with risky, difficult-to-sustain payouts can be a drag on retirement portfolios. For one, companies that no longer have the financial means to grow the dividend likely are struggling to grow the business, which may be reflected in weak stock returns. Plus, if a dividend is slowly growing or stagnant, it loses purchasing power to inflation every year, essentially become worth less and less over time. The worst-case scenario – a dividend cut – could leave you without much-needed retirement income.

Dividend health clearly matters. But how do you measure it?

One emerging solution is the DIVCON system from exchange-traded fund provider Reality Shares. DIVCON – the first forward-looking dividend health methodology – measures payout sustainability based on several fundamental factors that include earnings growth, free cash flow (how much cash companies have left over after they meet all their obligations), money spent on buybacks and even the Altman Z-score – a metric that helps determine a company’s likelihood of a bond default or bankruptcy. The result is a score between 1 and 5: DIVCON 5 indicates a very healthy dividend with a high likelihood of future growth, while DIVCON 1 indicates a shaky income foundation that implies little to no growth – and even the risk of a dividend cut.

Here are five dividend stocks with risky payouts, according to the DIVCON system. All five stocks have DIVCON 1 or DIVCON 2 scores. Let’s explore what specifically makes these dividends look shaky.

Price, market value and yield data is as of April 24. DIVCON ratings and measurement data such as earnings growth, levered free cash flow (LFCF)-to-dividend ratio and Altman Z-score is as of March 29. DIVCON 1 represents “most likely to decrease/cut their dividends in the next 12 months,” and DIVCON 2 represents “likely to decrease/cut their dividends in the next 12 months.” You can view other DIVCON ratings on the Reality Shares provider site.

This article was written by and presents the views of our contributing adviser, not the Kiplinger editorial staff. You can check adviser records with the SEC or with FINRA.

• Market value: $80 billion
• Dividend yield: 0.4%
• DIVCON Rating: 1

The only reason investors shouldn’t worry too much about General Electric (GE, $9.32) cutting its dividend is that there isn’t much more dividend to cut.

GE has slashed its payout twice in two years – from 24 cents per share quarterly to 12 cents in 2017, then down to its current penny per share in 2018. The company’s financial situation hints that the payout won’t recover anytime soon.

General Electric’s woes have continued long after its 2017 “reset” in which it hacked away at profit goals alongside its dividend. For instance, in October 2018, GE took a $22 billion impairment charge related to a 2015 acquisition from France’s Alstom – shortly thereafter, the SEC announced it was investigating the writedown. At the same time GE announced the impairment charge, CEO John Flannery abruptly stepped down and was replaced by former Danaher (DHR, $9.32) CEO Lawrence Culp, making him General Electric’s third chief in two years.

GE stock has been rated DIVCON 1 since December 2017 and has lost roughly half its value since then. The financials remain dismal today. General Electric has a levered free cash flow-to-dividend ratio of negative 486%, indicating that its cash flow can’t even cover its current meager payout.

Additionally, GE’s Altman Z-score – which looks at five factors to measure the firm’s credit strength – is 1.2. A score above 3 indicates a company isn’t likely to suffer a bankruptcy, while a score between 1.8-3 indicates some chance of bankruptcy, and a score lower than 1.8 indicates a high likelihood of bankruptcy. (For comparison’s sake, DIVCON 5 stocks score more than 8 on average.)

• Market value: $21.9 billion
• Dividend yield: 3.7%
• DIVCON Rating: 1
• FirstEnergy (FE, $40.86) is a utility company that serves 6 million electricity customers in six states across the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions.

Utility companies usually are considered reliable dividend stocks. And at a quick glance, FE doesn’t seem too troubled. Its stock is up a little more than 9% year-to-date, matching the utility sector. And FE finally increased its dividend by 5.6% earlier this year – the payout was slashed from 55 cents quarterly to 36 cents in 2014 and remained flat ever since.

But the fundamentals still are worrisome. Most notably, the company’s LFCF/dividend ratio was 170% as of late March, and the Altman Z-score of 0.64 is extremely weak. The third-party dividend health score is low, too, with a Bloomberg Dividend Health reading of -36 (the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index averages positive 22).

FirstEnergy on April 23 reported first-quarter results that came up shy of expectations. Its non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) profits of 67 cents were flat year-over-year and missed estimates by a penny, while revenues of $2.9 billion were down about 2% YoY and shy of expectations by about $10 million.

• Market value: $7.3 billion
• Dividend yield: 3.0%
• DIVCON Rating: 2
• Xerox (XRX, $33.69), the ubiquitous copier company, has expanded into other categories such as software and services over the years to maintain relevant – and so far, it has. The company is having a particularly hot 2019, up more than 60% year-to-date.

Note that Xerox, unlike the other companies on this list, is a DIVCON 2 stock – thus, while there is some risk to its payout, it’s not as urgent as the danger lurking in DIVCON 1 companies. Still, there are a few worry points that current and future shareholders alike should monitor.

For instance, its dividend has remained flat at 25 cents quarterly for a few years. Its Altman Z-score of 2.4, while not in panic territory, is less than the 3 score that would indicate little chance of a bankruptcy. Its third-party dividend score is lower than the S&P 500 average. (You can compare Xerox to other S&P 500 dividend stocks via this DIVCON dividend tool.) And in December 2018, credit-rating service Moody’s downgraded its senior unsecured debt from investment-grade Baa3 to “junk”-rated Ba1.

Xerox sent mixed messages with its latest earnings report, released April 25. While the company offered up significantly better-than-expected earnings and even an upgrade on its profit guidance, it missed analysts’ expectations for revenues. The top line declined from $2.4 billion in Q1 2018 to $2.2 billion in 2019’s first quarter; Wall Street was expecting $2.3 billion in sales.

• Market value: $2.5 billion
• Dividend yield: 5.3%
• DIVCON Rating: 1
• Ares Management (ARES, $24.29) is a global asset management firm focusing on alternative assets such as credit, private equity and real estate that managed about $131 billion in assets as of the end of 2018. The company hit the markets in May 2014 with a weak initial public offering (IPO), and has followed that up with a tepid 31% price performance since then that trails the S&P 500’s roughly 56% climb.

The company has a variable dividend that changes from quarter to quarter, though on an annual basis, Ares’ payout has improved every year since its IPO. Its LFCF/dividend ratio is roughly 90%, which means the payout isn’t fully covered by levered free cash, and its revenues and profits sank considerably in 2018 after years of growth.

For financial companies such as Ares, DIVCON looks at net income to total assets (NITA), which is a measure of how profitable its assets are. Ares’ NITA of 0.92 is markedly lower than the median value of 1.45 across the financial sector – another sign of fundamental weakness.

While the quarterly payout will continue to vary, these issues flagged by DIVCON suggest that the company will have trouble raising its full-year dividend total from current levels.

• Market value: $5.3 billion
• Dividend yield: 6.0%
• DIVCON Rating: 1

The last company on the list is New York Community Bancorp (NYCB, $11.38). NYCB is a midsize regional financial that operates as New York Community Bank. Its roots go all the way back to 1859, when it operated a lone branch in Flushing in New York City’s Queens borough. Now, the bank sports more than 250 branches across five states.

DIVCON has flagged several fundamental flaws that income investors should heed. The company’s five-year dividend growth is actually negative, courtesy of a 32% dividend cut in 2016 to 17 cents per share, where the payout has remained ever since. Earnings have shrunk from $1.09 per share in 2014 to 79 cents last year. And New York Community Bancorp’s NITA ratio of 0.92 is much lower than the financial-sector median.

NYCB shares have been unsurprisingly punished for the company’s lackluster financial performance, off 29% over the past five years. The company is up more than 20% this year despite a fourth-quarter earnings report that showed declines in earnings and net interest margin. But if the company lives down to analyst expectations of tepid profit growth in 2019, the rest of the year could be difficult, and any expansion in the dividend seems unlikely.

Generating safe, regular income and preserving capital are two primary objectives in retirement. The best retirement stocks to buy, then – whether you’re buying in 2019 or any other year – must be quality dividend payers that can help meet both of those goals in the long-term.

Unlike many fixed-income investments, numerous dividend stocks offer relatively high yields, grow their payouts each year and appreciate in price over time as their businesses generate more profits and become more valuable.

Not all dividends are safe, however. From General Electric (GE) and Owens & Minor (OMI) to L Brands (LB) and Buckeye Partners LP (BPL), several high-profile dividend-payers slashed their payouts in 2018, sending their stock prices tumbling. So the dividend stocks you depend on must be chosen with care.

These are the 19 best retirement stocks to buy for 2019. Research firm Simply Safe Dividends developed a Dividend Safety Score system that has helped investors avoid more than 98% of dividend cuts, including each of those companies listed above. The 19 stocks on this list have solid Dividend Safety Scores and generous yields near 4% or higher, making them appealing retirement stocks for income. Importantly, they also have strong potential to maintain and grow their dividends in all manner of economic and market environments.

Data is as of Dec. 16, 2018. Dividend yields are calculated by annualizing the most recent quarterly payout and dividing by the share price. Companies are listed in alphabetical order.

• Market value: $10.4 billion
• Distribution yield: 5.0%*
• Distribution growth streak: 10 years
• Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP (BIP, $37.50) is a master limited partnership (MLP) that owns a diverse array of long-life assets, including electrical transmission lines, toll roads, rail lines, midstream infrastructure and wireless towers. And these difficult-to-replicate assets collectively generate very predictable cash flow. In fact, 95% of the firm’s adjusted EBITDA is generated by regulated or long-term contracts.

As a result, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners has been able to predictably increase its distribution every year since going public in 2008. Going forward, management continues targeting a conservative payout of 60% to 70% of funds from operations and expects to generate 5% to 9% annual distribution growth.

This MLP sports an investment-grade credit rating, more than $2 billion in liquidity and numerous opportunities for growth as countries around the globe continue building, expanding and upgrading their infrastructure. All this should keep the partnership’s payout on solid ground.

It’s also worth noting the partnership structures its activities to avoid generating unrelated business taxable income. Therefore, unlike most limited partnerships that can have more complicated taxes, Brookfield’s units (shares of ownership in an MLP) are suitable for owning in retirement accounts.

As a Canadian company, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners will withhold 15% of its distribution to U.S. investors. But due to a tax treaty with Canada, U.S. investors can deduct this amount dollar-for-dollar as part of the foreign withholding tax credit.

* Distribution yields are calculated by annualizing the most recent distribution and dividing by the share price. Distributions are similar to dividends but are treated as tax-deferred returns of capital and require different paperwork come tax time.

• Market value: $47.5 billion
• Dividend yield: 3.9%
• Dividend growth streak: 4 years
• Crown Castle International (CCI, $114.55), which has more than 40,000 telecom towers and over 65,000 miles of fiber supporting its small cell network, is the largest provider of wireless infrastructure in America. It also is a holding in Bill Gates’ dividend portfolio.

The real estate investment trust (REIT) makes money by leasing out its towers and small cell nodes to wireless service providers such as AT&T (T) and Sprint (S). These carriers then deploy their equipment on the towers to power their wireless services used by consumers and businesses.

Crown Castle’s business model is appealing to conservative investors in part because it is so predictable. Most of the firm’s revenue is recurring and under long-term contracts with embedded growth from escalators.

Cisco Systems (CSCO) expects mobile data usage to more than quadruple between 2016 and 2021, so carrier network investment seems very likely to continue growing as well. As this plays out, Crown Castle’s towers and small cell networks should enjoy ever-higher utilization rates, supporting the firm’s outlook for profitable growth.

Besides its low-risk business model, CCI is one of the best retirement stocks due to its conservative management. The company maintains an investment-grade balance sheet and has an adjusted funds from operations (FFO, an important measure of REIT profitability) payout ratio just below 80%, which is very healthy.

Crown Castle has grown its dividend each since converting to a REIT in 2014, and management expects 7% to 8% annual dividend growth to continue over the long-term. For retired investors seeking a blend of income and growth, Crown Castle is a stock to consider.

• Market value: $64.7 billion
• Dividend yield: 4.1%
• Dividend growth streak: 14 years

Thanks to their predictable earnings, generous dividend payments, and defensive business models, regulated utilities are a cornerstone of many retirement portfolios. They also account for many of the best recession-proof stocks highlighted by Simply Safe Dividends.

• Duke Energy (DUK, $90.75) is no exception. The regulated utility serves 7.6 million electric customers and 1.6 million gas customers spread across the American Midwest and Southeast. Importantly, the areas Duke Energy operates in are favorable from both regulatory and economic standpoints.

“Duke’s regulatory environment stands out among its peers and is supported by better-than-average economic fundamentals in its key regions,” writes Morningstar senior equity analyst Andrew Bischof, CFA, CPA. “These factors contribute to the premium returns Duke has earned and have led to a constructive working relationship with its regulators, the most critical component of a regulated utility’s moat.”

Thanks to these qualities, Duke Energy can profitably grow its operations with little risk. Management is in the middle of executing a $37 billion growth capital plan between 2018 and 2022 that is expected to generate 4% to 6% annual earnings expansion.

If successful, Duke Energy’s dividend should grow at a similar rate and should remain on solid ground thanks to an expected 70% to 75% payout ratio and solid investment-grade credit rating. The utility has paid dividends for 92 consecutive years, and that track record shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.

• Market value: $49.1 billion
• Distribution yield: 6.6%
• Distribution growth streak: 20 years

MLPs have had a rough couple of years. A handful of factors – including crashing oil prices, regulatory pressure and tax headwinds – have not only pressured unit prices, but also forced distribution cuts and major restructurings.

• Enterprise Products Partners LP (EPD, $22.51) has not only held its ground during this tumultuous time, but the firm has also continued its 20-year distribution growth streak.

Enterprise is one of the largest midstream energy companies with around 50,000 miles of pipelines and has long been conservatively managed. For example, the firm eliminated its incentive distribution rights in 2002, has one of the highest credit ratings (BBB+) in the midstream energy sector and has maintained an excellent distribution coverage ratio of 1.6x through the first nine months of 2018.

Importantly, Enterprise Products Partners also is transitioning to a traditional, more conservative financial model. Rather than depend on fickle investor sentiment by issuing new units to raise growth capital, the firm plans to self-fund the equity portion of its capital investments beginning in 2019. This will be made possible by retaining more cash flow and running the business with lower target leverage.

Overall, Enterprise Products Partners appears to be evolving into an even more conservative business. For income investors who are willing to accept some of the complexities that come with investing in MLPs, EPD is one of the more reliable bets.

• Market value: $320.0 billion
• Dividend yield: 4.3%
• Dividend growth streak: 36 years
• Exxon Mobil (XOM, $75.58) is among the most popular among investors living off dividends in retirement, and for good reason.

Exxon is a fully integrated energy major, which means it operates globally along the entire hydrocarbon value chain. Argus analyst Bill Selesky writes that as a result, the giant energy producer, refiner and chemical business benefits from its diverse asset base and continues offering a sustainable dividend, despite the volatile oil price environment.

Allen Good, CFA, an analyst at Morningstar, similarly believes that Exxon is the highest-quality integrated firm, as evidenced by its superior returns made possible from the integration of low-cost assets and its low cost of capital (AA+ credit rating from S&P).

Simply put, XOM is among the most resilient and conservative businesses in the energy sector, which has helped it pay dividends for more than a century while increasing its payout for 36 consecutive years.

While many integrated oil firms are pulling back on growth in today’s volatile energy environment, Exxon’s management plans to invest approximately $200 billion between 2018 and 2025 to potentially more than double its operating cash flow. Even if oil prices average $40 per barrel, cash flow still is expected to rise 50% from these investments.

Management’s plans to ramp up capital expenditures are ambitious, but Exxon deserves the benefit of the doubt due to its excellent capital allocation track record and financial conservatism. The company’s dividend should remain safe, and its growth potential could improve if everything goes well.

• Market value: $4.0 billion
• Dividend yield: 3.8%
• Dividend growth streak: 16 years
• Flowers Foods (FLO, $19.04), which was founded in 1919, is a dominant player in the baked goods industry, with products spanning fresh breads, buns, snack cakes and rolls. Some of the company’s core brands include Nature’s Own (No. 1 load bread brand), Wonder Bread (98% consumer awareness), and Dave’s Killer Bread (No. 1 organic bread).

The fresh bakery market is very large and mature. As people continue eating in all manner of economic environments, it is also a recession-resistant industry. In fact, Flowers sales dipped just 2.6% during the financial crisis, and its stock lost just 1% while the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock lost 57% between 2007 and 2009.

FLO also continued raising its dividend during this time – something it has done for 16 consecutive years. While Flowers will never be a fast-growing business, it should remain a reliable cash cow for years to come. With an investment-grade credit rating and a payout ratio below 80%, management is running the business in a manner that should ensure safe dividends as well.

• Market value: $5.6 billion
• Dividend yield: 4.5%
• Dividend growth streak: 5 years
• Healthcare Trust of America (HTA, $27.30) is one of the younger real estate investment trusts in the market. It has only been in business since 2006, and it went public just a few years ago, in 2012. However, HTA still is the largest dedicated owner and operator of medical office buildings in the country.

Roughly two-thirds of the firm’s properties are located on or adjacent to the campuses of major health-care systems. As a result of this convenience and the high volume of patients coming through these areas, Healthcare Trust’s portfolio enjoys strong demand from medical practices.

Once a physician group is established in a particular territory with a steady flow of clients, they are reluctant to relocate. For this reason, medical office buildings have a high tenant retention rate in excess of 80% on average. Physician rent coverage ratios are also strong, exceeding 8x on average and reducing the risk profile of Healthcare Trust of America’s rental income stream.

Besides focusing on the more attractive and predictable areas of healthcare, management has done a nice job diversifying the business. Specifically, no market accounts for more than 13% of the company’s square footage, and no tenant accounts for more than 5% of leased assets.

Besides being defensive in nature, the company’s cash flow should also continue growing in the coming years. U.S. healthcare expenditures are forecast to rise 5.5% due largely to an aging population, fueling higher demand for medical office buildings.

HTA boasts an investment-grade balance sheet and a reasonable adjusted FFO payout ratio just below 90%. Thus, Healthcare Trust’s dividend should remain stable for the foreseeable future.

• Market value: $40.7 billion
• Dividend yield: 3.4%
• Dividend growth streak: 46 years
• Kimberly-Clark (KMB, $117.42) manufactures a variety of tissue and hygiene products under well-known brands such as Huggies, Kleenex, Kotex and Scott. A key to the company’s long-term success – which includes 46 consecutive years of dividend increases – is its longevity.

With roots tracing back to 1872, Kimberly-Clark has had more than 140 years to build distribution relationships, develop innovative products and pour money into marketing its products.

While these markets are extremely competitive, Morningstar sector director Erin Lash, CFA, believes that Kimberly-Clark derives a “narrow moat from its entrenched relationships with retailers and the resources it maintains to invest behind its brand mix in terms of both product innovation and marketing.”

Lash also says Kimberly-Clark spends a whopping $1 billion annually, or 5% of sales, on these categories.

Cutting costs is another core competency in this mature sector. Management seeks to take out at least $1.5 billion in supply-chain costs between 2018 and 2021, helping the company keep its bottom line growing. Combined with the fact that approximately 20% of the firm’s revenue comes from developing and emerging markets, Kimberly-Clark should have no trouble continuing its impressive dividend growth streak.

• Market value: $4.7 billion
• Dividend yield: 4.2%
• Dividend growth streak: 47 years

Despite being a lesser-known business, Leggett & Platt (LEG, $36.16) has delivered higher dividends for a remarkable 47 consecutive years.

The company’s success is spread across a number of engineered components such as mattress springs, armrests, steel wire and seat frames. These products are used in many different end markets, including bedding, flooring, furniture, automotive and consumer products. However, no business accounts for more than 20% of total sales – that’s strong diversity in the revenue stream.

Leggett & Platt has developed a reputation for quality over the 100-plus years it has been in business, helping it attain many long-term customer relationships along the way. By focusing on various niche markets where the pace of change is slow and it can lead on cost and innovation, the firm has developed a number of nice cash cows.

Looking ahead, management seeks to grow revenue by 6% to 9% annually and targets a dividend payout ratio between 50% and 60% of earnings, providing a reasonable margin of safety. While this can be a more cyclical business, Leggett & Platt’s dividend should remain a solid bet for retirement portfolios.

• Market value: $13.2 billion
• Distribution yield: 6.7%
• Distribution growth streak: 16 years
• Magellan Midstream Partners LP (MMP, $58.03) is another MLP that transports, stores and distributes petroleum products. The partnership’s profits are spread across refined products (54% of operating margin through the first nine months of 2018), crude oil (38%) and marine storage (8%).

Magellan essentially connects refineries to various end markets via the longest refined petroleum products pipeline system in the U.S., which includes 9,700 miles of pipelines, 53 terminals and numerous storage facilities.

Importantly, approximately 85% of the firm’s operating margin is comprised of fee-based, low-risk activities that are insensitive to commodity price fluctuations. As a result of its stable cash flow, the partnership has managed to pay higher distributions for 16 consecutive years.

Magellan’s impressive track record has also been made possible by its conservative management team. The partnership enjoys a BBB+ credit rating, making it one of the highest-rated MLPs, and it has minimal dependence on equity markets to grow. In fact, Magellan has only issued equity once in the past decade.

Magellan’s distribution safety also is supported by the firm’s desire to maintain a conservative 1.2x coverage ratio. As U.S. energy production continues growing and more infrastructure is needed, Magellan seems well-positioned to meet management’s target of growing the distribution by 5% to 8% per year for 2019 and 2020.

• Market value: $3.3 billion
• Dividend yield: 5.0%
• Dividend growth streak: 9 years
• National Health Investors (NHI, $79.31) is a healthcare REIT in which senior housing accounts for about two thirds of revenue, with skilled nursing and medical office buildings accounting for the remainder. In total, the firm owns 230 properties that are run by 34 operating partners located across 33 states.

In theory, senior housing is an attractive industry. Healthcare spending is growing faster than the broader economy as America’s population continues aging, and people need a place to live. However, tenants tend to have lower coverage ratios, and skilled nursing service providers often derive a meaningful amount of their revenue from government-funded reimbursement programs such as Medicare.

Fortunately, National Health Investors is managed very conservatively. The firm’s focus on working with higher-quality tenants has helped the business grow its cash flow faster than peers, for example.

Additionally, National Health Investors maintains a conservative balance sheet with relatively low leverage, and management runs the business with a reasonable payout ratio below 80%.

While National Health’s four largest tenants do account for an uncomfortably high 61% of revenue, the REIT has taken a number of steps to mitigate this risk. As a result, NHI seems likely to continue rewarding investors with steadily rising dividends in the years ahead.

• Market value: $8.1 billion
• Dividend yield: 4.0%
• Dividend growth streak: 29 years
• National Retail Properties (NNN, $50.65), founded in 1984, owns more than 2,800 properties leased to more than 400 tenants operating in 37 industries. As a triple-net-lease REIT, its tenants sign long-term contracts (average remaining lease term of 11.4 years) and are on the hook for property maintenance, insurance and taxes, reducing National Retail’s risk.

Risk is further reduced by management’s focus on diversification. The firm’s largest industry exposure is convenience stores, which account for 18.5% of rent, followed by full service restaurants (11.8%), limited-service restaurants (7.8%) and automotive service stores (7.6%).

Unlike certain parts of brick-and-mortar retail that are under pressure, National Retail’s business remains very strong. Its occupancy rate stands at 98.7%, and as CFRA equity analyst Chris Kuiper wrote, the firm’s portfolio appears resistant to e-commerce:

“We think NNN is more insulated from retailer woes compared to peers as most of NNN’s tenants are either restaurants or retailers focused on necessity-based shopping such as convenience stores, auto parts/service centers and banks.”

National Retail has increased its dividend 29 consecutive years and should have no trouble continuing its streak for the foreseeable future. Besides the company’s solid business model, National Retail also boasts an investment-grade credit rating and maintains a conservative payout ratio near 70%.

• Market value: $49.2 billion
• Dividend yield: 4.8%
• Dividend growth streak: 16 years
• Occidental Petroleum (OXY, $65.10) also known as Oxy, is an integrated energy giant with operations spread across oil and gas exploration and production, chemical manufacturing and midstream services.

While the energy sector is not known for its stable dividends, Oxy has paid uninterrupted dividends for more than a quarter of a century, including 16 consecutive years of dividend growth.

Following the oil price crash in recent years, Oxy has doubled down on its efforts to take costs out of its business and shed non-core assets to remain in good financial health. For example, Morningstar senior equity analyst Dave Meats, CFA, writes that management now believes the firm can sustain cash flow-neutral production growth of 5% to 8% per year with West Texas Intermediate crude averaging just $50/barrel (while continuing to increase the dividend).”

Even at $40-per-barrel oil prices, management believes the company can pay the dividend and maintain production. With a low breakeven cost, growing production, an “A” credit rating and a balanced cash flow stream thanks to its integrated operations, Oxy is well-positioned to continue paying (and growing) its dividend.

Conservative investors just need to be aware that the stock’s price is sensitive to the price of oil, so a stronger stomach is required to hold Oxy for the long-term.

• Market value: $24.8 billion
• Dividend yield: 5.7%
• Dividend growth streak: 16 years
• Oneok (OKE, $60.19) owns roughly 38,000 miles of natural gas liquids and natural gas pipelines, providing midstream services to energy producers, processors and end users. The company reaches some of the largest and most important shale formation in the country, including the Permian basin and Bakken shale of North Dakota.

Essentially, Oneok helps connect American energy supply with worldwide demand. As low-cost domestic energy production rises across the basins where it operates, Oneok’s infrastructure becomes even more important, and the company should be able to continue adding to its $6 billion backlog of organic growth projects.

Despite its ties to the energy industry, commodity prices only directly affect 15% of the firm’s earnings, which is down from more than 30% in 2013. Approximately 85% of Oneok’s profits are tied to fixed rate long-term contracts, providing very predictable cash flows.

Combined with the firm’s investment-grade balance sheet and distributable cash flow payout ratio near 75%, Oneok’s dividend is on firm ground and even has the potential to expand as the company executes on its growth projects.

In fact, management targets 9% to 11% annual dividend growth through 2021 and expects to maintain annual dividend overage of at least 1.2 times. Even better, since Oneok is a corporation rather than an MLP, investors can own the stock without worrying about tax complexities or unique organizational risks.

• Market value: $35.5 billion
• Dividend yield: 3.9%
• Dividend growth streak: 0 years

Although Public Storage’s (PSA, $203.47) dividend has remained frozen since late 2016, the self-storage REIT still boasts a track record of paying dividends without interruption for more than a quarter-century.

With more than 2,400 self-storage facilities in the U.S., Public Storage is bigger than its next three largest competitors combined. Such scale allows the company to maximize operational efficiency and squeeze more out of its marketing budget since most of its locations are concentrated in dense metropolitan centers.

The storage industry is an appealing area for retirement portfolios to invest because of its defensive nature. While there are arguably few enduring competitive advantages in this space since new supply can always be built, the overall economics are still attractive.,

For example, in the third quarter of 2018, Public Storage reported a 94% occupancy rate. Once the firm has a customer, it can begin raising the rent over time. As Morningstar financial services equity research director Michael Wong, CFA, CPA, points out, the “average customer receiving a rent increase letter for 8%-10% will rarely find it beneficial to research a new facility, rent a moving truck, and spend a day relocating to a different facility to save $10-$15 per month.”

Combined with the relatively low maintenance costs of storage facilities and the recession-resistant nature of demand, Public Storage is an enduring cash cow. The company’s “A” credit rating and reasonable payout ratio near 80% should ensure that its dividend remains safe in the years ahead, regardless of how industry supply and demand trend.

• Market value: $19.6 billion
• Dividend yield: 4.0%
• Dividend growth streak: 25 years
• Realty Income (O, $66.34) is one of the best monthly dividend stocks in the market, according to Simply Safe Dividends. Not only has the retail-focused REIT paid uninterrupted dividends for more than 49 years, but it also boasts a track record of 84 consecutive quarterly dividend increases.

As Morningstar equity analyst Kevin Brown observes, long-term leases and a focus on durable tenants have helped fuel Realty’s impressive track record:

“Over 90% of rental revenue is composed of tenants with non-discretionary, service-oriented, or low-price components to their businesses. This exposure, combined with traditionally long leases of approximately 15 years on average, provides the company with a steady and reliable stream of cash flows.”

In total, Realty owns more than 5,600 commercial properties that are leased to 260 tenants operating in 48 industries. No tenant is greater than 7% of rent; Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) is the largest at 6.4%.

This diversification, along with the REIT’s A- credit rating from S&P and adjusted FFO payout ratio near 80% all support the safety of its dividend going forward. While growth will never light up the world, Realty Income is one of the most reliable dividend-paying stocks for retired investors.

• Market value: $20.9 billion
• Dividend yield: 4.7%
• Dividend growth streak: 14 years
• Telus (TU, $34.84) is one of the largest telecom companies in Canada. In 2017, wireless operations accounted for 65% of total EBITDA, with wireline activities representing the remainder. In total, the company has 9.1 million wireless subscribers, 1.8 million internet subscribers, 1.3 million residential network access lines and 1.1 million TV customers.

Outside of cable TV, which is under pressure from cord-cutting, telecom services are generally inelastic. In fact, during the financial crisis, Telus’ revenue dipped just 1%, according to data from Simply Safe Dividends.

The mature state of the industry, along with its capital intensity, also makes it very difficult for new rivals to enter the market.

Matthew Dolgin, CFA, an equity analyst at Morningstar, writes that Telus is one of just three big national competitors in wireless. He believes “these three firms have solid moats that protect them from any current or future competition.” Combined, Telus, Rogers Communications (RCI) and BCE Inc. (BCE) are estimated to share 90% of the total market.

For these reasons, Telus seems likely to remain a solid cash generator and a reliable dividend payer. Management targets a conservative payout ratio between 65% and 75%, as well as an annual dividend growth rate between 7% and 10% through 2019.

Given the excellent cash flow and overall strong financial health, Telus seems likely to continue delivering for retired income investors.

• Market value: $235.9 billion
• Dividend yield: 4.2%
• Dividend growth streak: 12 years

While AT&T has acquired media and entertainment assets, Verizon (VZ, $57.08) has stuck to its core competency: wireless networks, which contribute nearly all of its profits today.

With more than 116 million connections and coverage of 98% of the U.S. population, Verizon is the largest wireless service provider in America. The firm has spent more than $125 billion since 2000 to meet growing demand for wireless data and prep its network for 5G.

Thanks to these investments, Verizon consistently scores at the top of RootMetrics’s report ranking wireless carriers in reliability, data and call performance for 10 straight reports in a row.

Given Verizon’s massive subscriber base, the slow-growing nature of the industry, and the costs required to maintain a nationwide network, it is next to impossible for smaller upstarts to try and entry the industry.

Verizon therefore generates very predictable earnings and moderate bottom-line growth, supported by management’s plans to take $10 billion of costs out of the business by 2021.

VZ has an investment-grade credit rating and earnings payout ratio near 50% – factors that are factors are very supportive of Verizon’s dividend safety.

• Market value: $11.4 billion
• Dividend yield: 5.8%
• Dividend growth streak: 19 years

In business for more than four decades, W.P. Carey (WPC, $70.58) owns a portfolio of more than 1,100 properties leased to more than 300 industrial, warehouse, office and retail tenants.

The diversified REIT’s cash flow is very stable thanks to its diversification (top 10 tenants represent 24% of rent), long-term leases (average length remaining of 10.5 years), focus on acquiring assets essential to a tenant’s operations (occupancy above 96% since 2007) and contractual rent increases (99% of leases have them).

These factors, along with its investment-grade credit ratings from Moody’s and S&P, have helped W.P. Carey raise its dividend every year since going public in 1998. With a payout ratio near 75% in 2018 and management continuing their disciplined approach to running and growing the business, WPC seems like a solid bet for retirement income going forward.

In fact, Simply Safe Dividends even lists the firm as one of the best high-yield stocks.

Brian Bollinger was long CCI, DUK, KMB, NNN, PSA, VZ, WPC and XOM as of this writing.

For many investors, newbies and veterans alike, there is often an attraction to big corporations. If a company is a household name, and perhaps you even have some of its products in your house, this appears to be a “safe” investment.

Because many of these blue-chip stocks pay dividends, this seems like a win-win situation, especially for retired investors who depend on income. However, as recent history shows, this isn’t always the best idea.

What is a blue-chip stock?

In order to be considered a blue-chip stock, a company typically has to have been in business for a long time, with billions in market capitalization. This type of company is typically one of the leaders in its industry.

Examples include Disney, IBM and Coca-Cola. These companies often issue dividends to shareholders on a quarterly and sometimes annual basis.

So, why shouldn’t all of these top global companies be considered rock-solid investments? The following are four examples of why even well-known companies aren’t always worth the investment.

Often there’s no such thing as a good stock in a bad market.

When things are going well, blue-chip stocks can seem like a stable way to realize market gains. A strong economy generally results in consumers buying from these companies, which maintains — or raises — the stock price and allows investors to keep getting dividends.

But what happens when things stop going so well?

There’s a perception that these well-established corporations will stay strong even during bad markets. But this often just isn’t true.

A great example of this is General Electric (GE). In 2008, GE’s quarterly dividend was 31 cents per share. When the worldwide recession hit, that dropped to 10 cents during 2009’s second quarter. And GE wasn’t the only company that took a hit. All together in 2009, more than half of companies that paid dividends cut them or stopped paying them entirely.

But that wasn’t the full story on GE’s troubles. This massive company, a historic highflier in the market, has been plagued by debt, much of it from underfunded pension plans and a series of poor management decisions.

GE lost over $140 billion in market value in 2017 alone, causing it to be kicked out of the venerable Dow Jones Industrial Average — the index that tracks the bluest of the blue-chip companies — this year. The share price of GE has dropped by over 50% in the past year.

Poor foresight

AT&T (T) is another example of a blue-chip stock that has struggled mightily in recent years. One reason cited for this is the company’s reliance on its pay-TV business, while more and more consumers are cutting cords.

According to the Leichtman Research Group, the U.S. market for pay TV lost around 1.5 million video subscribers in 2017, with a third of them AT&T customers. In this year alone, the value of AT&T shares has dropped nearly 16%.

Fluctuating prices

Companies that make things often have to rely on procuring the right elements to create their products. For instance, without cocoa, Hershey (HSY) wouldn’t be able to make the vast majority of its food items. And when cocoa prices increased from $2,000 to more than $3,000 per metric ton in 2015, this hurt Hershey significantly.

Cocoa prices dropped to less than $2,000 in 2016, but then they went back up to $2,500. Not only are Hershey executives taken on a roller coaster ride with these fluctuating prices, so are their investors. In 2015, Hershey stock hit a January high of $110.66 followed by a November low of $83.82 — a 24% drop. The stock recovered, but Hershey stock has taken about a 20% hit ($93.99 on July 13, 2018) from its January price this year.

Lack of innovation

Corporations can’t stand on name recognition alone, and this is evident with a company like Procter & Gamble (PG), maker of Tide, Crest, Charmin and many other household products.

From 2013 to 2017, P&G’s yearly earnings dropped nearly 20%. P&G has been slower to innovate, still mostly relying on in-store purchases and only recently putting more of an emphasis on e-commerce.

In the past five years, the overall price of the stock has fluctuated between a high of $93.46 on Dec. 26, 2014, and a low of $68.32 on Sept. 10, 2015. That’s a swing of almost 27%.

Why diversification is the key

There is certainly nothing wrong with investing in blue-chip stocks, but you know what they say about putting all of your eggs in one basket. This is why the smartest thing investors — and particularly retired investors — can do is diversify their portfolios to include fewer volatile investments.

Investment advisory services offered only by duly registered individuals through AE Wealth Management, LLC (AEWM). AEWM and Stuart Estate Planning Wealth Advisors are not affiliated companies. Stuart Estate Planning Wealth Advisors is an independent financial services firm that creates retirement strategies using a variety of investment and insurance products. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. No investment strategy can guarantee a profit or protect against loss in periods of declining values. Any references to safety and security generally refer to fixed insurance products, never securities or investment products. Insurance and annuity product guarantees are backed by the financial strength and claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company. 561609

The appearances in Kiplinger were obtained through a PR program. The columnist received assistance from a public relations firm in preparing this piece for submission to Kiplinger.com. Kiplinger was not compensated in any way.

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Once-great industrial giant General Electric (GE) was removed as a constituent of the Dow Jones Industrial Average in June 2018. Although GE was a component of the blue-chip index for 110 years, time finally caught up with it. The company never really made a full foray into the tech-centric modern era of manufacturing, and it lost ground as it lost relevancy.

That kind of decision can be tough on a stock. Not only does an army of index fund managers sell the stock to reconfigure their Dow-based investment pools, but the loss of an accolade such as being a Dow constituent can crimp investors’ perception of that company.

But Dow stocks getting the boot, while headline-worthy, isn’t unusual. On average, a Dow Jones component is replaced about once per year. And contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t have to serve as a kiss of death for a stock.

In fact, often times a stock performs very poorly before being removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average … then is kicked out right before a major turnaround.

Here are seven former Dow Jones stocks that more than survived being removed from the industrial average. In each case, they thrived despite the decision – and you don’t have to go too far back in time to find these comeback kids.

Data is as of July 25, 2018. Dividend yields are calculated by annualizing the most recent quarterly payout and dividing by the share price.

• Market value (HP): $37.9 billion
• Dividend yield (HP): 2.4%
• Market value (HPE): $23.8 billion
• Dividend yield (HP): 2.9%
• Exclusion Date: Sept. 20, 2013

Hewlett-Packard was removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average in September 2013. A little more than two years later, it broke apart into two companies: HP Inc. (HPQ, $23.29) and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE, $15.48).

Both arms were struggling at the time of the removal. HP shares (to become HPQ shares two years later) lost nearly 80% of their value between 2010’s peak and 2012’s low, as the advent of high-powered smartphones and tablets negated the need for computers.

Regardless of which new company you use as a yardstick, however, Hewlett-Packard losing its status as a Dow component may have marked the beginning of a major capitulation and turnaround. The stock fell through October 2013 but made a decisive bottom that would lead to a multi-month rally. HPQ shares are now up 140% since being kicked out of the Dow, and though HPE shares have only been in existence since late 2015, they’re up 72% for that span.

The companies collectively just needed a little more time to adapt to the then-budding cloud computing industry, perfect their 3D printers and prepare for a revival of the PC market.

• Market value: $311.3 billion
• Dividend yield: 1.5%
• Exclusion Date: Sept. 20, 2013
• Bank of America (BAC, $31.07) isn’t a Dow Jones stock despite being the second biggest bank in the United States – top honors belong to JPMorgan Chase (JPM). It used to be, but it was axed along with HPQ in September 2013 and replaced by fellow financial-sector stock Goldman Sachs (GS).

The given explanation from Standard & Poor’s, which maintains the index, was the stock’s perpetually low price – a habit unbecoming of a blue chip.

Although Bank of America was escaping from the echo of 2008’s subprime meltdown, it wasn’t doing so as effectively as its peers. It failed the Federal Reserve’s so-called “stress test” in 2011, and though it passed the test in 2012 and 2013, neither time did the bank even bother requesting permission to maintain its tepid dividend. It just wasn’t making enough money.

And although BAC shares had fought their way back from an early 2009 low of $2.53, the price of $13.80 as of September 2013 still was miles away from the peak near $55 hit in 2006. BofA simply was being lapped by lesser banks.

Had Bank of America been allowed to remain in the Dow, however, the index’s value might be different. BAC shares have advanced roughly 115% since then, versus about 45% for Goldman Sachs and 65% for the Dow.

• Market value: $52.4 billion
• Dividend yield: 4.0%
• Exclusion Date: June 8, 2009

The outcome of General Motors’ (GM, $37.65) removal from the Dow Jones Industrial Average is a tough one to measure.

The automaker lost its claim back in June 2009, when the fallout of aforementioned subprime meltdown finally proved torturous to the industry.

You’ll recall GM and its peers collectively tapped roughly $50 billion in emergency funding from the federal government; GM’s portion totaled around $11 billion. The company ended up filing bankruptcy in 2009 anyway, which is – broadly speaking – not something one would expect from a blue-chip outfit. GM emerged from Chapter 11 proceedings with a brand new version of its stock trading in late 2010. Since then, GM shares have gained about 14% from their post-bankruptcy-reissue price near $33. The modest gain, however, doesn’t fully reflect that last year’s operating profit of $9.9 billion was a record-breaker.

This year likely won’t be as robust, with the “peak auto” overhang still keeping growth in check. But it’s clear to see GM hasn’t exactly been hampered by its exclusion from the Dow.

• Market value: $180.5 billion
• Dividend yield: 2.5%
• Exclusion Date: June 8, 2009

Bank of America isn’t the only Big Four bank to be demoted from the Dow. Citigroup (C, $71.72) suffered the insult first, losing its place at the same time GM did … in June 2009, when the subprime loan implosion was in full swing.

By almost all measures, one can’t blame the Dow for kicking the bank out of the index. Shares lost a stunning 98% of their value between their late 2006 high and their early 2009 low. Although the stock appeared to have stopped bleeding by the middle of that year, the future still looked grim.

To the Dow’s credit, it was. Even with the meltdown six years in the rearview mirror, by 2014, Citigroup failed the Fed’s stress test for a second time in three years. Things just weren’t getting better.

Much like GM and Bank of America, Citigroup just needed more time to regroup. C shares are up more than 40% since the failed stress test in March 2014, and they’ve gained roughly 110% since falling from the ranks of the Dow stocks.

Citigroup still is nowhere near its 2006 peak price of $570, but that’s a huge return for investors that weren’t spooked by its removal.

• Market value: $118.3 billion
• Dividend yield: 1.9%
• Exclusion Date: Feb. 19, 2008
• Honeywell (HON, $158.02) was once a powerhouse provider of not just industrial equipment, but at-home appliances and gadgets, too. Odds are good that you’ve used a Honeywell-made thermostat at some point in your life.

The company wasn’t entirely prepared for the proliferation of low-cost, high-powered, consumer-oriented technologies, however. While it still was turning a profit at the time, it lost its status as a Dow Jones Industrial Average component in February 2008 because it had become the smallest of industrial companies, as measured by sales and profits.

Its removal also was a tacit reflection of something else going on around that time. As the index’s overseers explained at the time, “The role of industrial companies relative to the overall stock market has been shrinking in recent years.”

HON subsequently took its lumps, losing nearly 50% of its value over the course of the next 12 months; the recession certainly didn’t help.

In retrospect, however, pigeon-holing Honeywell as a relic industrial name may have been a mistake. Shares of HON have rallied a whopping 580% from a March 2009 low, as the company became a much more relevant name, melding parts and components with technology. Last year’s acquisition of Cavium, in fact, was described by CEO Matt Murphy as the creation of a “pure play” on industrial-level cloud computing and the industrial-oriented Internet of Things.

• Market value: $106.3 billion
• Dividend yield: 4.8%
• Exclusion Date: Feb. 19, 2008

Cigarette company Altria (MO, $57.85) was kicked out of the Dow at the same time Honeywell was – in February 2008 – and the decision wasn’t surprising.

Anti-smoking campaigns had been underway for years, even as far back as a decade ago, and were starting to get real traction. Moreover, at the time, Altria was in the midst of its spinoff of Philip Morris International (PM) and had already spun off Kraft Foods. With nothing but a dying cigarette business left, the proverbial writing was on the wall. Sooner or later, Altria had to go. As then-Dow Jones Indexes editor John Prestbo put it, “It isn’t the company it was when it was put in the Dow.”

But a funny thing happened on the road to oblivion. Altria found a way to keep winning new business, whether by acquisitions of rivals, a foray into e-cigarettes, or even stakes in the alcohol industry. It hasn’t been pretty. It hasn’t been easy. But Altria has more often than not kept the top and bottom lines growing since early 2008.

Shareholders willing to take the plunge in 2008 have reaped their rewards, too. MO shares are up 154% since being booted from the Dow, not including dividends.

• Market value: $21.3 billion
• Dividend yield: 3.6%
• Exclusion Date: April 8, 2004

Since being kicked out of the Dow Jones Industrial Average in April 2004, shares of International Paper (IP, $53.04) have improved by about 25%, though they’ve returned a little more than 100% once you include dividends.

Not earth-shattering. But not the kiss of death, either.

It was a different time, or at least a situation, that prompted a different perspective. In 2004, while personal computers were becoming commonplace, broadband was still young and web-connected phones were practically nonexistent (save the BlackBerry). With a new tech-centric era then upon us, many thought simple basic materials like paper and cardboard would slowly fade away.

As it turns out, the advent of the internet as the centerpiece of our lives has given us room and reason to consume more paper than ever imaginable. (Thank you, Amazon.com!)

For the record, IP shares didn’t log that 30% gain in a straight line. International Paper shares lost 85% of their value between the time they were ousted and the early 2009 low, initially caught up amid a tepid paper-pricing environment then flushed out to sea by the “Great Recession.”

Whatever the case, the stock’s success wasn’t necessarily dependent on its inclusion in the Dow. Not only is IP up since that ill-fated day back in 2004, but the stock has rebounded by more than 1,600% since its early-2009 bottom. The company regrouped and was rebuilt just in time to ride a huge wave of economic growth.

Not every name bounces back after being booted from the Dow. Among the most noteworthy expellees that never really permanently recovered are AT&T (T); Alcoa (AA) and its spinoff Arconic (ARNC); Kraft, before it melded with Heinz to become Kraft Heinz (KHC); American International Group (AIG) – though its story is an exception to any norm, expelled in September of 2008 at the height of the subprime meltdown; and Sears (SHLD), just to name a few.

There’s also a handful of names such as Kodak and Bethlehem Steel; the former became part of Eastman Kodak (KODK) and the latter mostly faded away over time. Because of bankruptcies, spinoffs and other disruptions, it’s difficult to determine how their remnants perform for their present owners … if they’re even around in a form that matters.

The demise or poor performance of those companies, however, has little to do specifically with their status (or lack thereof) as a Dow name. In most of these cases, management was ill-prepared for the future, unable to handle looming changes largely brought on by technology.

In other words, former Dow stocks – just like current Dow stocks – should be judged on their merits and plausible prospects. No more, no less.

James Brumley was long T as of this writing.

Tales of climbing the ladder from clerk to CEO aren't reserved for the plots of Hollywood movies such as 9 to 5, Jerry Maguire or How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. The real world is filled with leaders who worked their way up from obscurity to earn millions running huge corporations.

How did they do it? Their stories, inspiring and instructive, reveal a drive to succeed, a willingness to buck convention and, of course, an unshakable work ethic.

If you start at the bottom, can you really make it to the top? As actress Audrey Hepburn said, "Nothing is impossible. The word itself says, 'I'm possible!'"

Meet 15 executives who have proved it:

• Age: 65
• Started: Hourly employee at General Electric jet engine plant, age 21
• Finished: CEO, Honeywell (2002-2017)
• Quote: "If you blame someone else, that's not a stand-up thing to do."

"To lead, you have to address what people really want to know in a simple, transparent way. Just treating people with respect makes a big difference.

"At 33, I was a mid-level corporate financial planner at GE. My staff wanted me to make an internal request for ROI [return on investment] projections from another business unit. I didn’t want to—I knew our CEO, Jack Welch, didn't want us to focus on that—but my team voted me down, so I agreed.

"I get a call from Jack Welch summoning me to his office. He berates me for 15 minutes for requesting that info. I call my wife and tell her I'll be fired.

"A few months later, a buddy on my team mentions to Welch that I never wanted to request the ROI numbers. Impressed, Welch calls me and says, 'You took a knife for those guys?' I got a three-level jump to a CFO role in an aircraft engine production unit managing 200 employees."

• Age: 71
• Started: Proofreader at RR Donnelley, age 17
• Finished: CEO, Océ-USA Holding (2002-2004)
• Quote: "I kept improving myself and investing in myself."

"In 38 years at RR Donnelley, I went from apprentice proofreader to president of its largest unit, Print Solutions, a $3.7 billion business. The number-one thing I learned is you have to market yourself like a product and differentiate yourself. I got my education—an associate degree, undergrad degree in business and MBA—as a differentiator.

"I was a proofreader for four years, starting at $1.92 an hour. It was boring, so I applied for production coordinator and got it—the first African-American in that job. Few managers were educated (they were craftsmen), so I saw an opportunity.

"In 1979, I was 32 and a manager job opened up in a money-losing unit. I took it, and within two years we were profitable—in part because I applied root cause analysis that I learned in college. A few years later, I was a long shot to be general manager at a Pennsylvania plant, but I dazzled the senior VP in the interview and got the job. In 20 months, I made radical changes.

"I always stayed on the cutting edge of management. I'm a risk taker, and I don't mind taking on tough assignments."

• Age: 50
• Started: Clerk at Copyright Clearance Center, age 21
• Finished: CEO, Copyright Clearance Center (2007-present)
• Quote: "The only boundaries you have are the boundaries you set for yourself."

"I started here as a clerk and did that job for close to one year. I cannot stand being bored, so, in my spare time, I wrote a tri-fold marketing brochure and brought it to Marketing. They used it and asked me to do more projects.

"In 1996, I was 28 and a customer service manager when my boss called me at home (I was on leave for family reasons) and asked me to come in. There was a big, bet-the-company tech and infrastructure project that wasn't on time or on budget, and they asked me to manage it. I said yes, and it became my on-the-job MBA.

"I soon discovered why it was behind schedule. I had to tell truth to power (our then-CEO), put sunshine on the problem and fix it. It took 18 months, but we laid it out, broke it down into chunks and did it. I still work with a few people who helped me on that initiative. We earned our stripes together. And the success of that project has largely driven our success as a company."

• Age: 80
• Started: Baggage handler at Capital Airlines, age 17
• Finished: CEO, Southwest Airlines (1978-1981); CEO, Braniff International Airways (1981-1983)
• Quote: "Stand up for what you believe in."

"On the first hour of my first night, I was in the airline's belly pit unloading bags. After my lead agent, Tony, told me to unload bags onto the conveyor belt, he got a flashlight, hammer and paper bag and started opening the locks on suitcases and stealing jewelry and other valuable items.

"He did that two or three times that night, and I did nothing about it. I went to my $10-a-week sleeping room near Midway Airport, and I couldn't sleep. The next night, Tony rolled an airplane tire down the conveyor trying to hit an agent on the ground. I yelled, and he got out of the way. Fortunately, a manager happened to see it and fired Tony on the spot. I vowed that I'd never compromise my ethics, no matter what.

"At 19, I decided I wanted to be president of an airline. So I adopted a 'What do you need me to do?' mentality. Work a double shift. Train someone. Transfer me to another department or city. I will do it. My wife, Krista (a former flight attendant), and I were willing to sacrifice to make it happen. We were and still are a team after 60 years of marriage."

• Age: 45
• Started: Front-desk job at Planet Fitness, age 20
• Finished: CEO, Planet Fitness (2013-present)
• Quote: "Be fearless in taking opportunities that you don't know about."

"While in college in 1993, I got a part-time job working the front desk at our first store. A year later, I was working there full-time. I went from the front desk to personal trainer to store manager to regional manager.

"When we opened our third store in 1998, my idea was instead of selling the equipment, we'd sell the atmosphere of our gym. The two founders liked my idea immediately—the logo and mission statement you see today where everyone will feel comfortable working out—and that catapulted the company.

"The founders made me a partner in 2003 when we started franchising, and I became chief operating officer. I feel like I have a keen sense of getting into the mind of the consumer. In our industry, it's easy to become infatuated with the competition. I stay infatuated with the consumer."

• Age: 43
• Started: Sales and marketing job at International Paper, age 21
• Finished: CEO, UniWorld Group (2012-present)
• Quote: "Be fearless in taking opportunities that you don't know about."

"I started in sales and marketing at International Paper's plant in a small town near Green Bay, Wis.—a remote and ridiculously cold environment, a stinky paper mill in minus-20-degree weather.

"In my first few months, I was hitting a lot of walls. I wasn't getting up to speed as fast as I would've liked. So I wrote a new employee manual with processes on how to enter an order into the system, acronyms people used, types of pulp, etc. I thought it would help with on-boarding people like me who came into the paper mill blind.

"Two years later, they transferred me to Arlington Heights, Ill. That employee manual was still being used after I left.

"Six months after I moved to Illinois, I was offered a marketing job at Motorola. I liked marketing, but one day my brand manager at Motorola asked me, 'How much do you know about P&L?' I replied, 'Not much.' So she suggested I spend time deepening my understanding of the product."

"That led me to become an executive assistant to the head of Motorola's product line management. I learned so much from him, working on client management, strategy, supply chain management. The job gave me a more visible role and led to promotions, including a stint in Milan and returning to the U.S. to lead big marketing campaigns."

• Age: 53
• Started: Computer programmer
• Finished: CEO, Open Text (2012-present)
• Quote: "You must lead with your mind and your heart."

"I graduated college in the 1980s with a Computer Science degree, but quickly learned that being the smartest person in the room was less important than being the best student. Asking questions, staying curious, learning and mastering the task at hand is what really counts.

"My desire to learn and ask questions was key in my progression from computer programmer to my role today. But I also learned a valuable lesson later in my career. After surviving leukemia, I become very 'awake' and realized that whereas curiosity and mastery are inseparable, humility, empathy and mindfulness are essential.

"I believe that to navigate any career and bring others along with you, you must lead with your mind and your heart. And it is an obstacle course, not a ladder."

• Age: 46
• Started: Staff accountant at Deloitte, age 21
• Finished: CEO, Generac (2008-present)
• Quote: "There shouldn't be any shame in wanting to work for a small family business. There's a stigma to that, and there shouldn't be."

"After one year at Deloitte in an entry-level accounting job, I joined Generac in the finance department. Generac was a Deloitte client. I took a pay cut to come here; it was a small family business back then, and you could be a lot more visible. I wanted to work more closely with the founder and learn how a business was run.

"I gained confidence through shadow management: I'd observe my manager (who sat in the next cubicle). When people asked him questions, I'd imagine how I'd answer. Sometimes, I heard how he answered, and I'd go to him later and ask, 'Can you tell me why you responded that way?' Eventually, I saw that 99% of the time, my answers were accurate.

"With each promotion, I asked questions like, 'What are the expectations in my new role?' and 'What will success look like?' Initially, there's trepidation: Can I do this new job? I had to rebuild my confidence with every new role—to make the job my own and put my mark on it."

• Age: 54
• Started: Manufacturing process engineer at The Toro Co., age 22
• Finished: CEO, The Toro Co. (2016-present)
• Quote: "Work for a company with a culture that fits your values and for leaders who will support and challenge you to do more."

"Initially, I intended to work at Toro for a couple of years and then start my own business. But each assignment was a new challenge that kept me engaged, and I learned the importance of aligned goals in a complex organization, the value of trust in high-performing teams, the need for diverse views in seeking solutions and the sense of urgency in solving problems.

"I went on to manage one of Toro's manufacturing plants and eventually became managing director of our northern operations. During that time, I completed my MBA and became general manager of our Exmark landscape contractor business in Beatrice, Neb. I earned these and other promotions based on my ability to stay close to customers and understand their current and future needs, as well as building relationships with key channel partners.

"I never focused on climbing the organizational ladder. My focus was on exceeding the expectations of my role and responsibilities, building sincere relationships both internally and externally, continuously learning and taking on new challenges and responsibilities."

• Age: 64
• Started: Consultant at Boston Consulting Group, age 23
• Finished: CEO, Ingredion (2009-2017)
• Quote: "I learned to be my own advocate and to be tenacious."

"In the 1970s, BCG sent me to London when international work was almost unheard of for women. I was the only professional woman in the office, and some British male colleagues had a dismissive attitude toward me. After my presentation, one of them sniffed with an entitled sense of superiority and cut me down, claiming my advice was intellectually simplistic. But I had done my homework and was armed with the data analysis to show how I created value for the client.

"A mentor gave me my first shot at a P&L [profit and loss] role. In my early thirties, I would be working with men in their fifties. He counseled me to get to know them, understand them and figure out how to motivate them.

"When I visited the factories I was responsible for, I got some skeptical glances. In one case, an executive in his mid fifties was clearly uneasy working with me. Every month, I'd commute to his plant to meet with him and have lunch. After awhile, he saw I was smart and wanted his business to grow. We established a great relationship, and he came to understand that I could help bring out his real brilliance in his work.

"Throughout my career, I've stayed true to myself. That meant making choices consistent with my goals. I tried never to lose sight of my priorities: I wanted the corner office. I also wanted a thriving family.

"I was offered opportunities that would have required uprooting my family. I declined them, but I accepted a couple of key positions that involved a weekly commute from Chicago to Houston and to Paris. For me, staying devoted to both work and family has meant giving up some other things, like an active social life and, frequently, sleep."

• Age: 64
• Started: Production coordinator at Mouton Publishers, age 22
• Finished: CEO, Cision (2008-2013)
• Quote: "Don't overpromise and under-deliver. But do the reverse."

"Within two or three months of starting my first job as a low-level production coordinator, I learned that the company was in bad financial shape. I should've asked more questions instead of just taking the job, and I moved into sales at another company.

"By my late twenties, I was running global sales for Elsevier, a science publishing company. My boss's boss—Elsevier's chairman—was a key mentor. One day, he said, 'Why don't you ask more questions rather than making statements?' I'd tell people what was wrong and how to do it right. But he was advising me not to pass judgment, but to ask questions such as, 'How's that working for you?' and 'Why don't you explain it to me?'

"He gave me straight feedback. Ever since, I've found that asking questions is a great way to get people to improve things and accept organizational change.

"Before taking a job, find out who's going to be your boss. Is he honest? Do you respect her? Can you learn from him or her? I was lucky: I had people who coached me well and mentored me."

• Age: 66
• Started: Marketing assistant at General Mills, age 24
• Finished: CEO, Campbell Soup Co. (2001-2011); Chairman, Avon Products (2012-2015)
• Quote: "It's not all about you. It's all about the people you work with."

"In my first job as an entry-level marketing assistant, I learned it's all about how the team performs and how you can help them be their best. I had never worked in an office before, and I had to conform to corporate life. It was very competitive, but I found that if I could build a network of people, my network could outperform any other network. Nobody outworked me there.

"I worked hard to be promoted based on the performance of my team. To get that performance, I was tough-minded on standards and tenderhearted with people. Realizing we have to take problems head-on, there's always room for a kind word and connecting it to performance. I became known for dropping people handwritten notes—'Wow, you got it done two days early. Thanks!' or 'Great job bringing it in under budget!' It sends a message that you're paying attention. And specifics help.

"As CEO of Campbell Soup Co., I wrote 10 to 20 notes a day, six days a week. Celebrate what people are doing right, and you'll get the most from them."

• Age: 52
• Started: Staff accountant at KPMG, age 24
• Finished: CEO, PGT Innovations (2018-present)
• Quote: "If you know something, you need to speak up and explain it right."

"I started as an entry-level staff accountant, unjamming fax machines and fetching lunch for partners at the firm. I did that job for one year. A mentor told me 'to do whatever it takes to get it done,' so I counted inventories on Christmas and New Year's. I never took off weekends and holidays.

"At 32, I got my first executive role—as CFO at Mrs. Smith's Bakeries, owned by Flowers Foods. One day, I fly to Flowers' board of directors to give a report. The CEO calls me over. I think he's going to tell me something important. He says, 'Jackson, see what you can do about the men's bathroom. The toilets are stopped up.'

"I didn't blink an eye. I went downstairs and asked a receptionist to get a janitor to bring a plunger. Everyone wants status without putting in the time."

"I joined PGT as CFO in November 2005 and in my first few months, I got it ready for its IPO [initial public offering]. In November 2006, our executive team—eight people—met, and everyone gave positive sales projections. I was the only one who questioned them. They replied, 'You don't believe in our sales folks.'

"I went home and told my wife, 'I pissed off everyone on my team.' But I was basing my comments on data analysis, and their forecast didn't make sense. There was no business justification for it and no catalyst driving their numbers. Four months later, our sales started declining, and we entered a recession.

"Certain people don't like to be challenged, but you need to do what's right and challenge them in an open spirit and explain your reasoning. If they respond on a personal basis, don't take the bait."

• Age: 55
• Started: Management trainee at First Boston, age 23
• Finished: CEO, Alliance Data Systems (2009-present)
• Quote: "Whether you're up or down the food chain, just leave your ego at the door."

"As a newly minted MBA in 1986, I got a job as a management trainee at First Boston. It was a nice shot to my ego. But then the crash of 1987 occurred, and we soon learned we were lucky to have a job. It made me more disciplined and conservative with my expectations.

"In planning their career, people restrict themselves. They think, 'This is where it's at!' whether it's Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, wherever. But you have to be willing to be flexible, pick up stakes and pack your bags.

"In 1998, I was working in California for First Data in M&A [mergers and acquisitions]. I had been in Silicon Valley for four or five years and liked it there. It seemed like an adventure to move to Texas to join Alliance Data Systems as CFO, so I left the ocean breezes and rolling hills for the plains of Texas. It was 105 degrees on the day I arrived. But this is where the opportunities were at the time, and I'm still here in Texas."

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• Age: 67
• Started: Allocation coordinator at Pennzoil Co., age 23
• Finished: CEO, WEX Inc. (1998-2013)
• Quote: "When the job becomes so much more than a job—when you apply your full emotional, intellectual and psychological energies toward a cause—you are fully invested in its success."

"When I was 25, a friend in HR gave me an exercise that determined my career path: You had to list, narrow and prioritize your values. When opportunities developed, I used these values to make career decisions. For example, I prioritized creating and participating in a team and being in a position of ownership in an organization.

"About five years after I joined WEX, the company was losing money, and we lost our CEO. I weighed an offer to leave WEX for a larger company, making twice my current salary. But I wouldn't be in a position of ownership if I left WEX, and there was a chance that my leaving could create vulnerabilities that could possibly result in the company failing. I felt an obligation to those I recruited to work for WEX—and other WEX team members—to stay on. So I did.

"Years later, I was competing for a promotion. My competition took a more aggressive, ego-driven, Machiavellian posture, while I took the high road. Initially, I felt I was losing ground and grew frustrated. But by following my moral compass, I was eventually promoted.

"In the mid 1970s, I took up meditation to increase my energy level. It also helped me gain mindfulness and not sweat the small stuff. The additional benefits—gratitude, empathy, an uncluttered mind—served me well professionally and personally. When I faced a major decision, I'd cram all the data I could into my mind, sleep on it and meditate the next morning. Meditation calmed my mind and allowed me to synthesize all the information to make an informed, effective decision."

Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B), likes to say that his ideal holding period is “forever.” But he never has been shy about dumping stocks that no longer hew to his high standards, even if they are some of the bluest of blue-chip stocks.

The Oracle of Omaha has famously held American Express (AXP), a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, since 1963. He added Coca-Cola (KO), another Dow stock, to Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio in 1988 and has held tight ever since. But for every American Express and Coca-Cola, there many more just-as-famous blue chips that Buffett has banished from Berkshire’s portfolio.

Warren Buffett typically doesn’t like to say too much about the reasoning behind Berkshire Hathaway’s buying and selling of individual securities. And it’s not always clear who is acting on Berkshire Hathaway’s behalf because Buffett shares responsibility for the company’s portfolio with lieutenants Ted Weschler and Todd Combs.

One thing, however, is for sure: When Warren Buffett makes a mistake, he’s quick to rectify it. If a company flounders because of management missteps, the industry turns against it or Warren Buffett is just plain wrong in his reading of the economic cycle, he will not hesitate to cut and run, no matter how illustrious the name.

Here are 10 examples of Warren Buffett bailing out on some of the biggest blue-chip stocks.

Data is as of May 2, 2018. Click on ticker-symbol links in each slide for current share prices and more.

Buffett sold the last of Berkshire’s holdings in Deere & Company (DE, $134.75) in the first quarter of 2017. It was a stunningly fast about-face for the legendary value investor, who built up a 24.7 million-share stake in the tractor maker back only in 2014.

So what went wrong?

A global farm recession made Deere look like a beaten-down bargain when Buffett first came calling. After all, it seemed only a matter of time before the agricultural business cycle would turn around. Alas, global ag woes only deepened in the ensuing years and Deere’s stock plummeted.

When shares finally returned to 2014 levels, Buffett saw his chance to get out.

Warren Buffett dumped the last of Berkshire’s 41 million shares – worth about $3.7 billion at the time – in Exxon Mobil (XOM, $76.80) at the end of 2014.

At first blush, it might seem stunning that the great value investor would bail out of the nation’s biggest oil company and longtime member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. But it’s not surprising at all when you recall what happened to oil prices four years ago. A barrel of benchmark Brent crude that fetched about $110 at the beginning of 2014 went for just $50 by year’s end. That crash in oil sent many smaller energy firms into bankruptcy, and crippled the stocks of even the largest, most financially solvent energy players.

Oil prices have recovered somewhat since, but Exxon’s stock hasn’t. Shares still are down 17% since the end of 2014.

Buffett sold Berkshire’s remaining 10.6 million-share stake in General Electric (GE, $14.18) in the second quarter of 2017, and no one was much surprised.

General Electric was never the same after the Great Recession. In response to tightening regulations, management was compelled to sell off the company’s sprawling financial operations – a powerful source of profits.

The company’s prospects significantly worsened over the past few years. In 2017, CEO Jeff Immelt stepped down amid increasing problems with General Electric’s operational performance. In fact, analysts even sounded the alarm on GE’s dividend, and sure enough, it halved it in November to free up capital. The General Electric that’s left is a sputtering industrial conglomerate, and investors aren’t quite sure what to make of its future.

Although not one to try and time the market, Buffett’s timing was nevertheless impeccable. GE’s stock is down 50% over the past year.

It was an affair so brief that it’s easy to forget Warren Buffett once had an interest in Intel (INTC, $52.31).

Berkshire Hathaway acquired almost 11.5 million shares in the chipmaker over the course of 2011, only to dump the entire stake in the first quarter of 2012. It was a profitable – if short-lived – investment, though it’s not clear whether it was made by Buffett or one of his lieutenants, Ted Weschler or Todd Combs.

But it sure was well-timed. Not long after Berkshire’s exit, shares in Intel went on to drop 30% over the course of six months. The company, which missed out on the shift to mobile computing, continues to grapple with declining sales of PCs.

After years of telling Berkshire shareholders that he didn’t really understand technology stocks, it was big news when Warren Buffett first bought about $10 billion worth of International Business Machines (IBM, $142.45) back in 2011.

He should have remained tech-averse.

By the end of 2016, Berkshire owned 81.2 million shares, amounting to 8.5% of the company’s outstanding stock. As of today, Berkshire holds just 2 million shares in Big Blue – a mere 0.2% stake in the tech giant that’s worth less than $300 million.

IBM is struggling to play catch up in the age of Big Data and cloud computing. Years of declining sales and a share price that’s off 30% over the past five years make the Dow stock a rare blown call for Buffett.

Warren Buffett’s interest in Johnson & Johnson (JNJ, $123.50) peaked more than a decade ago. Now, the diversified health-care giant represents nothing more than a token holding.

You can blame management missteps. J&J struggled with manufacturing problems and allegations of illegal marketing practices in 2010 and 2011. Buffett was critical of the company for those gaffes, as well as for using too much of its own stock in its 2011 acquisition of device-maker Synthes.

Disenchanted with Johnson & Johnson, Buffett dumped most of Berkshire’s stake in 2012. Back in 2007, Berkshire’s position in JNJ topped out at 64.3 million shares. Today, Berkshire’s stake comes to just 327,100 shares (~$40 million), which represents less than 0.01% of the company.

Berkshire Hathaway was a major shareholder in Gillette when Procter & Gamble (PG, $70.94) bought the razor company in 2005. Buffett called it a “dream deal,” as Berkshire came to own 100 million shares in the consumer products company.

However, his ardor for P&G soon faded. Procter & Gamble’s earnings and sales stagnated in the Great Recession and its aftermath as consumers opted for cheaper brands. Buffett took notice and gradually chipped away at Berkshire’s stake.

At the end of 2012, Berkshire held just 52.5 million PG shares. Less than two years later, Buffett would sell those shares back to Procter & Gamble for $4.7 billion in return for its Duracell battery business.

Today, Berkshire retains just 315,400 shares in P&G worth roughly $22 million, or about 0.01% of the consumer products company.

Give Warren Buffett credit for admitting when he’s screwed up.

His ill-fated bet on a British supermarket chain was a doozy. The Oracle of Omaha sure wasn’t clairvoyant in 2006, when he plunged Berkshire Hathaway into shares of Tesco (TSCDY, $9.56), the U.K.-based grocer and general merchandise retailer. Even a surprise profit warning couldn’t scare Buffett away from upping his stake in the troubled chain; at the end of 2012, Berkshire owned 415 million shares.

Buffett eventually sold the shares over the course of 2013 and 2014, as an accounting scandal engulfed Tesco. But the Oracle admitted that he moved much too slowly. In his 2014 shareholder letter, Buffett said his “thumb sucking” cost Berkshire an after-tax investment loss of $444 million.

Buffett’s favorite holding period might be “forever,” but that doesn’t mean he can’t run out of patience fast. Witness Berkshire Hathaway’s dalliance with Verizon (VZ, $47.75).

Buffett first bought a stake of 11 million shares in the telecommunications giant in the first quarter of 2014. By the end of 2016, he’d all but liquidated the position. Verizon’s stock underperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index during Berkshire’s tenure. Some observers concluded that Buffett simply lost patience with the lumbering telco amid escalating industry price wars.

Today, Berkshire holds a token 928 shares in VZ worth $44,000.

Warren Buffett first invested in Walmart (WMT, $86.34) in 2005 with a stake of more than 19 million shares. By 2012, Berkshire Hathaway held nearly 55 million shares in the world’s largest retailer.

But times change.

The rise of Amazon.com (AMZN) and e-commerce led Buffett to rethink the future of brick-and-mortar retail. After years of paring his investment in Walmart, Buffett dumped most of Berkshire’s remaining stake at the end of 2016.

Today, Buffett is full of praise for Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, and Berkshire’s WMT holdings are down to 1.4 million shares, or about 0.05% of the big-box chain.

The kids are all right—or at least they will be. The oldest of the millennials, loosely defined as those born between 1981 and the turn of the century, are approaching 35. And as the generation matures and enters its prime wealth-building years, reality is setting in about long life expectancies and the solvency of Social Security. According to Bankrate's latest survey of investing professionals, three-quarters of the market gurus polled agree that millennials are ready to take on more risk and invest in stocks in order to afford the things they want, including eventual retirement.

In fact, TD Ameritrade reports that among its customers, two-thirds of the typical millennial portfolio is already invested in individual stocks. "Young investors are stock pickers," says Nicole Sherrod, managing director of the trader group at TD Ameritrade. "And from what we see of the stocks that they've been investing in en masse, they're doing pretty well."

Which stocks do they like? It turns out that, despite reports of their many differences, millennials and baby boomers have similar investing tastes. According to Openfolio, a social media network where investors can share and compare their portfolios, six of the top 10 stocks held by people ages 25 to 34 are also favorites of folks 50 to 64: Apple, Facebook, Walt Disney, General Electric, Microsoft and Google.

Popular Stocks Among Millennials

Apple (symbol AAPL, $115.15) is the top holding across all generations, according to both Openfolio and TD Ameritrade. Millennials seem particularly enamored. Apple is often the first stock trade for investors of this generation, says Sherrod. Its popularity should be no surprise to anyone who has noticed that the stock has more than tripled in value over the past five years. Less expected: It remains relatively affordable. The stock sells at 12 times estimated year-ahead earnings. That's cheaper than the 17 forward price-earnings ratio of Standard & Poor's 500-stock index.

Apple promises to continue its rise as the company consistently churns out upgrades, as well as new products. Anthony David, a Washington, D.C.-based financial adviser with Morgan Stanley, points to high demand for both the iPhone and new Apple Watch to support Morgan Stanley's 12- to 18-month price target of $155, an aggressive one-third above the stock's mid August price of $115. In the quarter that ended in June, the company sold more than 47 million iPhones, now in its tenth iteration. That's 35% more than during the same period in 2014. Those sales totaled $31.4 billion, 59% more than the product earned the year before. The Apple Watch is off to a good start. After being introduced in the U.S. in April, it sold 20% more pieces than first-generation iPhones did in its first six weeks.

Facebook (FB, $93.43) is the second-most popular stock among millennials, according to TD Ameritrade. (According to Openfolio, it's second among 25- to 34-year-olds and third among investors under the age of 25.) Like Apple, its popularity is evident in the skyrocketing price. Since its initial public offering at $38 in May 2012, Facebook's stock sank to a low of $18 that September but has since soared to near $100. And it still might have room to run. The site may be relatively old in the social media world, but "it is still early days in the company's effort to grow as an industry-leading global advertising business," says David.

The social network does hold the attention of a growing number of users. In the second quarter of 2015, the site reported 968 million people actively using it on a daily basis, up 17% from the year before. The number of daily visitors using a mobile device has grown at an even faster pace, 29% to 844 million. All those eyeballs mean big money for the company. Advertising revenue totaled more than $3.8 billion in the second quarter of the year, up 43% from the same period of 2014. Mobile ads count for 76% of those dollars; in 2014, it was 62%. Analysts expect sales to increase 38% this year and another 35% in 2016. Morgan Stanley raised Facebook's 12- to 18-month price target from $94 to $110.

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A surprisingly popular stock among millennials is General Electric (GE, $25.79). Founded in 1892, it may not be the sexy company you'd think would attract young investors. It's more like the stable suitor their parents might keep mentioning at family dinners. According to TD Ameritrade, it's the third-most popular stock among millennials and second-most popular with boomers. "I think probably it's a brand that their parents have recommended to them, a company that their parents have been invested in for a really long time," says Sherrod. (Openfolio ranks GE sixth in popularity among investors under 35.)

It just goes to show that sometimes your parents really do know what's best for you. With the ongoing sale of its financial-services unit, GE Capital, the company is returning to its industrial roots and raising cash in the process. The company has reached agreements to sell about $78 billion worth of its financial-services assets so far in 2015, putting it on track to hit $100 billion in asset sales by the end of the year. GE's core industrial operations demonstrated year-over-year improvement during the second quarter. Analysts expect earnings will increase by about 19% in 2016. The stock sells at 18 times estimated year-ahead earnings, versus a P/E of 17 for the S&P 500. Plus, even if young investors are not all that interested in income at the moment, GE's current yield is 3.5%.

One company that younger and older investors don't quite agree on is Tesla (TSLA, $242.51). According to Openfolio, it ranks second in popularity among investors under 25 and third for investors ages 25 to 34. Yet, it's just 24th for 50-to-64-year-olds, and it doesn't even appear in the 25 top stocks for investors over age 65. "Our younger investors tend to look for companies that are a little bit more socially responsible," says TD Ameritrade's Sherrod. "Tesla is doing a lot in the green space with electric cars."

Given each generation's investing time horizon, Tesla's popularity, or lack thereof, makes sense. In the short term, Tesla expects losses as it invests in developing new technology and ramping up production. And the stock is very pricey at 181 times year-ahead earnings. But, says David, analyzing the stock based just on near-term expectations won't work.

In the long run, the company is poised to transform the energy and auto industries and to boost sales exponentially. Morgan Stanley expects Tesla could multiply its revenues by 18 times by 2029. The company expects its Gigafactory outside Reno, Nev., to be fully operational by 2020. At that time, the facility, where Tesla is set to make its lithium-ion battery packs, will boost production to 500,000 vehicles a year. In 2015, it expects to deliver 55,000 vehicles. Tesla's base Model S sedan starts at $75,000, though options can easily push the price tag into six figures.

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A Word of Warning

While the stock market is the place to build wealth over very long periods of time, buying individual stocks comes with risks. "I wouldn't recommend young people touch individual stocks," says David. "They usually won't have sufficient funds to diversify properly." Indeed, you'd need nearly $500 in order to buy just a single share of each of the four companies listed above.

And you would be nowhere near a well-diversified portfolio. After all, a large position in any single company allows it to have a great impact on your wealth. If that company tanks for any reason, so do you. For a proper mix, you should limit your stake in any one company to between 2% and 5% of your portfolio, meaning you'd need to invest in at least 20 holdings. John Sweeney, executive vice president of retirement and investing strategies at Fidelity, recommends a minimum of about 40 stocks to build a well-diversified portfolio.

A high concentration in a single sector can also be a concern. Millennial investors have nearly one-third of their portfolios in technology companies, according to TD Ameritrade. Baby boomers and seniors have just 26.9% and 19.2% of their investments, respectively, in tech. By comparison, 19.8% of the S&P 500 is composed of tech companies. "I think that's a function of the brands that they're really familiar with do tend to be tech brands," says Sherrod.

Investing in mutual funds is a simpler way to reap the benefits of the stock market. With a single purchase, you can invest in hundreds of stocks and dampen the risk. Plus, you can still buy a stake in a company you like. "When I have someone really interested in investing in, say, Apple, I let them know there are a whole host of low-cost mutual funds and ETFs that hold a piece of Apple along with a lot of other companies," says Karen Carr, a financial planner with the Society of Grownups, based in Brookline, Mass. "So you're getting the best of both worlds there."

Take a look at the Kip 25 to see our favorite low-cost, no-load funds. No matter what your age, it's a great place to start.

Is Apple, the world's most valuable company, on its way toward an unprecedented market capitalization of $1 trillion? Or is Mapplegate, the fiasco surrounding the error-filled map app on Apple's new iPhone, a sign that the aura surrounding Apple and its seemingly bulletproof stock is starting to dissipate. If Apple were to fall from its lofty perch, it certainly wouldn't be a shock, because, let’s face it, it's tough to hold on to the top spot. Companies go in and out of fashion. Stock prices rise and fall. Consider that Microsoft became number one in September 1998 when its market value was a lofty $282 billion; as of October 3, it's valued at $250 billion. In September 1993, General Electric hit the alpha-spot with $84 billion; its current market cap is $242 billion.

Over the past 20 years, seven companies have held the number-one spot in market value. How did they make it to the top, why did they fall, and which companies supplanted them? Have a look. (Please note: the periods at the top reflect broad ranges and don't take into account brief reversals due to small, temporary changes in share prices.)

When it was on top: March 1992.

The company's current name, Altria Group, wasn't coined until 2003. Marlboro remains the world's best-selling cigarette brand to this day.

Mike Miles was riding the bull when he took over as CEO in late 1991. Under his predecessor, Hamish Maxwell, Philip Morris had generated five consecutive years of earnings growth of at least 20% annually, thanks in part to acquisitions of General Foods in 1985 and Kraft in 1988. But domestic tobacco sales were slowing amid changing attitudes toward smoking. A flood of tobacco litigation also ensued.

Who pushed it aside: ExxonMobil, from April 1992 through October 1992 (more about Exxon later).

When it was on top: November 1992 through January 1993.

Twenty years ago, Wal-Mart ascended to corporate champ. The company was ringing in record sales and earnings and expanding across the country with new stores, supercenters and Sam's Clubs. But the stock ran out of steam in March 1993 and languished for the next four years.

Some blame the April 1992 passing of founder Sam Walton. Some analysts believeoverexpansion may have been an issue, too. To boost growth in 1994, the company doubled the number of its supercenters -- those now-ubiquitous discount store/grocery one-stop shopping concepts -- and increased by two-thirds the number of Sam's Clubs, its warehouse stores. But sales growth at existing stores, the traditional figure used to measure retailers, had dropped to 6% from 11% the year before. The toll was enough to unseat Wal-Mart.

Who pushed it aside: ExxonMobil, for just a few months, from January to April 1993; then AT&T (more on Exxon later).

When it was on top: May 1993 through August 1993.

This wasn't Ma Bell's first time on the throne -- she'd been queen of the markets in the early 1980s. That was before the phone giant (with a little nudging from the U.S. Department of Justice) divested its local operating companies in 1984 while retaining its manufacturing arm and long-distance operations. The breakup resulted in the creation of seven regional holding companies (aka Baby Bells), as well as a six-year stretch of steadily declining long-distance rates.

Declining toll-call revenues forced AT&T to seek other avenues of growth. In 1991, it bought computer maker NCR in anticipation of growing synergies between computing and communications. And in August 1993, AT&T announced the acquisition of McCaw Cellular Communications, then the country's largest provider of cell-phone service.

Who pushed it aside: General Electric.

When it was on top: September 1993 to August 1998, with a brief interruption in 1994, when AT&T reclaimed the top spot, and subsequent reigns occurring periodically from 2000 to 2005.

These were the reaping years for Jack Welch. He had been CEO of GE since 1981, and the fruits of his reign ripened in the 90s. He'd spent the previous decade slimming down the company and redefining it -- laying off employees, selling off manufacturing businesses and buying up financial-services firms. By the mid 90s, the conglomerate was in full swing with Six-Sigma -- the management strategy that, among other things, stressed rewarding winners and rejecting losers. General Eclectic became a market darling -- Fortune called it one of the world's "most admired companies" and Welch was named "manager of the century." Welch left the company in 2001.

Who pushed it aside: Microsoft.

When it was on top: September 1998 through March 2000.

Microsoft's ascent was fueled by 23 consecutive years of record sales and earnings (the company was founded in 1975; it went public in 1986). The colossus of Redmond had its share of lovers and haters. In June 1998, it launched its Windows 98 operating system in 40 countries. The software would end up on the overwhelming majority of new personal computers. But earlier that year, the U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against Microsoft. About that time, the tech-stock boom of the late 1990s, fueled by the Internet and concerns about the changeover on computers to the year 2000, was accelerating.

In December 1999, a few months before the bubble burst, Microsoft shares peaked at a split-adjusted price of $58.72. The stock had doubled in 12 months and was trading at a whopping 70 times earnings (its historic average price-earnings ratio was about 30). When the party ended, Microsoft's stock suffered. It ceded its crown of most-valuable company in April 2000 -- only to regain it in June 2002 and hold it (most of the time) until September 2003. But the company has never fully recovered from tech bubble popping. As of October 3, Microsoft sells at ten times estimated 2013 earnings.

Who pushed it aside: GE, in its post-Welch days, under his successor, Jeffrey Immelt. But in 2005, GE was ousted again, this time by ExxonMobil.

When it was on top: February 2005 through August 2011.

Think rising oil prices, which hit an all-time high in 2008. That year, the company clocked record revenues and profits. ExxonMobil has ranked among the ten largest companies in the country for decades. It remains today the world's largest publicly traded energy company. The firm's history stretches back more than 125 years and includes well-known brands long-since folded into the current incarnation, including Standard Oil, MobileOil, Esso, Mobile and Exxon. But falling commodity prices have hurt ExxonMobil's stock lately, making way for another company to be crowned king.

Who pushed it aside: Apple, though Exxon briefly reclaimed the number-one spot in late 2011.

When it was on top: September 2011 through today.

Walk the streets, sit in a restaurant, ride the train -- wherever you go, you'll see people using iPhones or iPads (or both). Wildly popular products explain why Apple has climbed to the top of the heap. The company's profits have grown at a stunning annualized pace of 59% over the past ten years, and it sits on an astounding $117 billion in cash. Apple's market value of more than $620 billion exceeds that of its nearest rival, ExxonMobil, by more than $200 billion.

Who pushed it aside: ???????

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It's been more than 20 years since Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and nuclear power's long winter is finally beginning to thaw. Rising prices for oil and natural gas are making atomic energy seem cheap by comparison, and global-warming concerns are prompting reconsideration of clean-burning nuclear power. After a decade in which no nuclear-powered electric generating stations came online in the U.S., 31 new reactors are on the drawing boards.

The amount of electricity the U.S. uses is expected to rise 50% by 2030, the Department of Energy forecasts. To meet this new demand while keeping a lid on pollutants spewed by fossil-fuel plants, utilities are again eyeing nuclear power. Overseas, the same scenario is playing out on a grander scale. Worldwide electricity consumption is expected to double by 2030 as more and more residents of developing nations become able to afford TVs, computers and air conditioners. Currently, 28 reactors are under construction in China, India, Russia and elsewhere. The London-based World Energy Council says that meeting new demand for electricity while reducing the current level of emissions will require tripling the world's nuclear-plant capacity by 2050.

Although many crucial issues -- such as how to dispose of toxic byproducts -- must be resolved, nuclear power is clearly assuming a higher profile. Investor interest is rising as well. The bad news is that most companies involved in building new plants are privately held or trade only in foreign markets. An exception is General Electric (symbol GE), a major provider of boiling water reactors, which are found in 81 of the world's 442 nuclear plants. However, GE's energy business represents only about 10% of its $160 billion in annual revenues, and nuclear is only a portion of that. Moreover, GE recently agreed to pool its nuclear business in a joint venture with Japan's Hitachi.

There are two more-direct ways to invest in nuclear power: through utilities with big fleets of reliable, low-cost nuclear plants and through companies that mine and process uranium.

Nuclear's edge

Nuclear generating stations' advantage over fossil-fuel plants becomes clear when you compare their costs of operation and upkeep. Nuclear plants cost about 1.72 cents per kilowatt-hour to operate, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group. Compare that with 2.21 cents for coal plants, 7.51 cents for gas and 8.09 cents for oil. The difference is attributable primarily to fuel costs, which account for 78% to 94% of the tab for producing electricity at fossil-fuel plants but only 26% at nuclear plants. So even though the price of uranium, which powers nuclear plants, has risen sharply, it has far less impact on overall costs. "Because of rising gas and coal prices, nuclear has become a big cash machine for utilities," says Roger Conrad, editor of the newsletter Utility Forecaster.

TIMELINE

A Brief History of Nuclear Power

1896 Antoine Becquerel discovers radioactivity.

1942 Scientists at the University of Chicago create the first self-sustaining nuclear reaction.

1951 An experimental nuclear reactor in Arco, Idaho, produces enough electricity to power four light bulbs.

1954 The Atomic Energy Act authorizes development of nuclear energy for civilian use.

1957 First commercial nuclear-powered generating station is built in Shippingport, Pa.

1979 Mechanical failure and human error cause loss of coolant from the reactor core at the Three Mile Island power plant, near Middletown, Pa.

1986 Chernobyl disaster occurs in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. Contamination from the radioactive fallout spreads to 58,000 square miles.

1996 Last nuclear plant in the U.S., Watts Bar-1, in Spring City, Tenn., comes online.

2003 Dominion Power and Exelon file applications to build nuclear facilities in Virginia and Illinois, respectively. The facilities would be the first new reactors since 1996.

But it is enormously expensive to build nuclear plants: They cost as much as $2,000 per kilowatt-hour of output, compared with up to $1,500 for coal plants and $800 for gas plants, according to the International Energy Agency. So that's another argument for investing in companies that already own nuclear facilities. It takes years to clear regulatory hurdles for a new nuclear plant, build it and obtain a license for it to operate. "The advantage of owning nuclear today is that new competition is probably ten years away, at least," says John Kohli, manager of the Franklin Utilities fund.

Utility firms that are able to generate lots of cheap, nuclear-powered electricity and sell it on the open market have an even greater advantage. Entergy, for example, provides electricity to 2.7 million customers in four southern states. The business is heavily regulated, and profits are limited to what state overseers allow. But the New Orleans-based firm also owns five nuclear plants in the Northeast that sell power primarily to wholesale customers and are largely unregulated. The merchant-power business provides 14% of Entergy's revenues, but in the third quarter of 2006 it accounted for 28% of operating profits.

And as rising gas and oil prices push up the cost of power from competing plants, Entergy will be able to charge more for future output. Goldman Sachs analyst Michael Lapides estimates that every $1 increase in the price of gas (now about $8 per million British thermal units) could boost Entergy's earnings per share by roughly 11%. He thinks Entergy (ETR) could earn almost $8.50 per share in 2010, compared with an expected $4.80 in 2006.

Entergy's regulated utility business, however, may be holding down the stock, which fetched $91 in mid December. Hurricane Katrina caused $1.5 billion of damage to the company's facilities and forced its New Orleans utility business into Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. It remains unclear how much of the repair cost will be covered by insurance, rate increases and federal assistance.

The stock is near an all-time high, but, Lapides says, it's still cheaper than rivals' shares on a price-to-earnings basis. Further gains in the stock could come from progress in the bankruptcy case and a possible large-scale share buyback.

Biggest operator

Like Entergy, Chicago-based Exelon is getting a big boost in profits from its largely nuclear-powered wholesale energy business. Exelon (EXC) operates two large utilities serving 5.2 million customers in Illinois and Pennsylvania. A third business, Exelon Nuclear, has interests in 17 atomic reactors, making Exelon the nation's largest nuclear-plant operator. The merchant-power business is expected to account for 65% of operating profits in 2007, up from 50% in '06, says Standard & Poor's analyst Justin McCann.

But Exelon's shares, recently $61, have encountered some turbulence. A merger with Public Service Enterprise Group was scuttled after regulators in New Jersey, where PSE is based, balked. And Illinois regulators recently decided to allow just $8 million of a requested $317 million rate hike for Exelon's Chicago utility. Illinois regulators also want to extend an expiring rate freeze, which could force Exelon to buy power at market rates and sell it to customers at a loss.

Still, S&P's McCann says, the stock could be worth $70 in a year. He anticipates operating profits in 2007 of $4.55 per share, up 37% from 2006 earnings, thanks in part to higher wholesale prices and profit margins in merchant energy.

A riskier but potentially more rewarding way to invest in nuclear energy is through uranium. Its price has soared because of rising demand and years of under-investment by mining firms. In addition, surplus government uranium from weapons stockpiles, which in recent decades supplemented the supply, is running thin. Today, uranium costs $63 a pound, up from $12 three years ago. Fadi Shadid, an analyst at investment bank Friedman Billings Ramsey, expects the demand for uranium to exceed supply by 10% annually through 2015 and looks for prices to hit $80 a pound within the next few years.

That's why he is still bullish on Cameco (CCJ), a Canadian uranium miner, despite the more than sevenfold increase in its share price since 2003.

Nuclear utilities buy uranium under long-term contracts, and Shadid estimates that Cameco currently realizes about $21 per pound for its output. About 30% of the company's contracts will end in 2008, just as prices are peaking, he says. In addition, Cameco has a new mine coming online, and when it reaches full production in 2010, it will boost the company's uranium output by 50%. Shadid sees earnings per share rising from about $1.10 in 2006 to $4.17 in 2011. The stock, recently $40, could be worth $46 in a year, he says.

Uranium play

Shadid also likes USEC, which operates the only uranium-enrichment facility in the U.S. Enrichment is a process that increases the potency of natural uranium. USEC's plant, in Paducah, Ky., uses an energy-intensive enrichment process, called gaseous diffusion, that many consider outmoded. But a Piketon, Ohio, plant that uses centrifugal separation, a newer method, is expected to begin operations in 2009.

The Piketon plant is commercially unproven, however, and the project's cost, $2.5 billion, is more than twice the company's market value and will depress earnings for several years. The stock (USU), recently $13, is down 16% since January 2006. But as the new technology gains credibility, Shadid says, investors will warm to USEC's shares. He thinks they could be worth $22 in a year.