Saturday, September 12, 2009

9/12/09 Sat Merck Mistrial on Fosamax

The following is not intended as advertising by a broker-dealer and is not a research report.

Post #103 The following is brought to you by Intellivest Securities Research, Inc. The following is not intended as advertising by a broker-dealer and is not a research report. Towards the end of this Blog is an update of the Dow 30's most recent SEC filings as of 9/4/09.

A read of Saturday's 9/12/09 print editions of: Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Atl Journal Const, and the 9/21/09 issue of BusinessWeek yielded the following stories about Dow Jones Industrial Average 30 component companies and the Dow with stories about the Dow aggregated first and then items about Dow Jones Industrial Average 30 companies presented alphabetically, followed by symbol and Thursday's closing price and related data:

Dow: WSJ pB1 "Stocks end 5-Day Run: Gold Finishes At $1,004.90 by Peter A. McKay & Carolyn Cui says Stocks fell Friday after a strong week in which major indexes hit new highs for the year, but gold kept marching higher.

WSJ pB3 "Large Stock Focus - Driving Transprots, FedEx Clumbs 6.4% by Geoffrey Rogow says stocks closed their best week in a month slightly to the downside Friday as traders took profits in Bank of America and Chevron, while FedEx helped mitigate the decline and led a basket of other transportation stocks into the green.

WSJ pB6 "A Week in the Life of the DJIA" says the Dow gained 164.14 or 1.74% for the week. To date, a $1,000 investment on Dec. 31 in each current DJIA stock component would have returned $34,979, or a gain of 16.60% on the $30,000 investment, including reinvested dividends.

NYT pB5 "Stocks & Bonds - Gold Reaches new Highs As Shares End Day Lower" by Jack Healty says few American consumers are lining up to buy expensive watches and rings. Profits at jewelry companies are down. But at the same time, plenty of investors are clamoring to buy precious metals as spot gold surged $8.60 to $1,005.20 an ounce.

Fin Times p14 "Wall Street - Investors concerned over prospect of a pull-back" by Samantha Pearson says US stocks broke their five day winning streak yesterday, after delcining oil prcies sapped the energy out of the rally and left investors worried abou the long-mooted Sept pullback. After strong performances in the week, the energy and materials sector also dragged the market down but industrial stocks stayed strong. During the week, GE powered the sector after JPMorgan upgraded the stock and Goldman Sachs raised its price target ont he company the day after.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed Friday at 9605.41 down 22.07 or 0.23% from Thursday's close of 9627.48. The Dow was up for the week 164.14 over last Friday's close of 9441.27. Of the 30 Dow Companies: 9 gained and 21 declined with the biggest loser being Chevron CVX $70.75 -0.70 0.98% 9,860,983 NYSE and the biggest gainer being Coke CVX $70.75 -0.70 0.98% 9,860,983 NYSE.

The current divisor for the Dow found at today's page B4 (during the week its apage C4) of The Wall St. Jrnl is .132319125 unchanged. Friday's Dow Jones Industrial Average closing numerator was 1270.98 down 2.92 from Thursday's closing Dow numerator of 1273.90. This is the sum of all 30 closing prices. A short cut to the Dow numerator is to multiply the closing Dow by the Divisor. Now, if you divide the Dow numerator decrease for today of 2.92 by the divisor you get 22.07, the decrease in Friday's Dow close.

The average closing price (the closing numerator divided by 30) of Friday's Dow Jones Industrial Average was 42.37 down 0.09 from Thursday's Dow Jones Industrial Average closing price of 42.46. The median closing price of Friday's Dow Jones Industrial Average was 38.34 down 0.37 from Thursday's Dow Jones median closing price of 38.71.

The highest closing price Friday again was IBM $118.05 +0.38 0.32% 5,875,924 NYSE and the lowest closing price Friday again was Alcoa AA $12.99 +0.15 1.17% 22,547,935 NYSE. The lowest volume Friday again was MMM $74 -0.39 0.52% 3,299,453 NYSE and the highest volume again was Bank of Am BAC $16.97 -0.25 1.45% 137,701,264 NYSE.

If Friday morning before the market opened you had purchased $100 of each of the Dow Jones Industrial Average 30 shares (assuming you could buy fractional shares and assuming no transaction costs) and sold at the close you would have lost $380
($127,390 - $127,110)

T $26.66 +0.10 0.38% 23,445,722 NYSE: No mentions found.

AA $12.99 +0.15 1.17% 22,547,935 NYSE: No mentions found.

AXP $34.17 -0.23 0.67% 8,271,404 NYSE: No mentions found.

Bank of Am BAC $16.97 -0.25 1.45% 137,701,264 NYSE: WSJ pB3 "Large Stock Focus - Driving Transprots, FedEx Clumbs 6.4% by Geoffrey Rogow says stocks closed their best week in a month slightly to the downside Friday as traders took profits in Bank of America and Chevron, while FedEx helped mitigate the decline and led a basket of other transportation stocks into the green.

NYT pA1 "A Year After a Cataclysm, Little Change on Wall St. - Progress Is Slow on Regulatory Overhaul, Posing Risk of Even Bigger Crisis" by Alex Berenson says before the crisis, a dozen or so big banks formed the top tier; now Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are clearly the strongest, with Morgan Stanley struggling to compete. Bank of America and Citigroup are the weakest big banks, heavily reliant on government guarantees to survive.

Bus Wk p8 discussed NY Atty gen'l Cuomo's Sept. 8 threats to bring securities fraud charges against BAC execs over thier failures to disclose Merrill's mounting losses and bonus payouts ahead ofa key shareholder vote last Dec.

Bus Wk p67 "Money Report - Who Has The Deposts" says BAC has $901 bil at No. 1 and No. 3 is JPM with $626.1 bil

Boeing BA $51.35 +0.86 1.7% 5,868,210 NYSE: BW p6 notes the World Trade Organization issued an interim ruling on 9/4 that European govs made illegal subsidies to Airbus, which competes with Boeing.

CAT $48.53 -0.16 0.33% 9,749,625 NYSE: No mentions found.

Chevron CVX $70.75 -0.70 0.98% 9,860,983 NYSE: WSJ pB3 "Large Stock Focus - Driving Transprots, FedEx Clumbs 6.4% by Geoffrey Rogow says stocks closed their best week in a month slightly to the downside Friday as traders took profits in Bank of America and Chevron, while FedEx helped mitigate the decline and led a basket of other transportation stocks into the green.

Cisco CSCO $23.09 +0.08 0.35% 52,906,165 NASDAQ-GS: BusWk p70 "Oracle Has Customers Over a Barrel" says once mainly a hardware vendor of computers, IBM has used an acquisition strategy to exapnd into software and information tech services. Cisco Systems is the king of bolt on acquisitions where they pruchase a much smaller company such as voice over Interent gearmaker Sipura then it uses its manaufcaturing smaarts and sales force to promote cutting edge products that fit into exisitng lines of business. It says MSFT is not good at deal making giving an example its $6 bil purchase of Web advertising company aQuantive at too high a price.

Coke KO $51.51 +0.93 1.84% 16,966,199 NYSE: AJC pA11 says Coke has hired Shakira Barrera, 19, of Englewood, NJ to be the fourth member of the Fantanas, a gorup that promotes the Fanta brand.

Disney DIS $28.42 +0.06 0.21% 14,178,642 NYSE: "The Struggle to Get Boys' Attention - Behind Disney's Marvel deal is the feverish pursuit of increasingly distracted young males" by Tom Lowry & Ronald Grover says Dis is targeting the audience most media execs covet, 30 million US males ages 5 to 19.

DD $31.81 -0.28 0.87% 6,954,581 NYSE: No mentions found.

XOM $69.98 -0.67 0.95% 17,382,548 NYSE: No mentions found.

GE $14.67 -0.13 0.88% 100,517,452 NYSE: Fin Times p14 "Wall Street - Investors concerned over prospect of a pull-back" by Samantha Pearson says US stocks broke their five day winning streak yesterday, after delcining oil prcies sapped the energy out of the rally and left investors worried abou the long-mooted Sept pullback. After strong performances in the week, the energy and materials sector also dragged the market down but industrial stocks stayed strong. During the week, GE powered the sector after JPMorgan upgraded the stock and Goldman Sachs raised its price target ont he company the day after.

Merck, Pfizer & GE are mentioned in an article about Six Sigma at Bus Wk p64 and how they use this controversial data driven system to reduce production defects and improve processes from marketing to manufacturing.

Hewlett-Packard HPQ $46.1 -0.40 0.86% 12,804,229 NYSE: NYT pB1 "Goodbye, Gobbledygook - PC Makers Are Dropping Sales Pitches Built On Complex Specs" says says a thing called a fact tag sits next to PCs at stores like Best Buy and Fry's, bewildering consumers with words like DDR2 RAM, 5400 rpm hard drives, L2 cache sizes of Core 2 Duos. Now pc makers are trying to make things easier to undestand. Intel has spent less time talking about its variety of chip brands and more time hawking products under its flagship Core brand. Hewlett-Packard hired the fashion designer Vivienne Tam to construct a multicolored, purselike laptop. Computer makers have tried to make life easier by sidestepping Microsoft's Windows and adding their own interfaces but Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 software should not be as bloated as the old Vista system becuase it will require less horsepower and storage space.

HD $27.34 -0.19 0.69% 14,612,289 NYSE: No mentions found.

Intel INTC $19.51 -0.25 1.27% 58,525,895 NASDAQ-GS: NYT pB1 "Goodbye, Gobbledygook - PC Makers Are Dropping Sales Pitches Built On Complex Specs" says says a thing called a fact tag sits next to PCs at stores like Best Buy and Fry's, bewildering consumers with words like DDR2 RAM, 5400 rpm hard drives, L2 cache sizes of Core 2 Duos. Now pc makers are trying to make things easier to undestand. Intel has spent less time talking about its variety of chip brands and more time hawking products under its flagship Core brand. Hewlett-Packard hired the fashion designer Vivienne Tam to construct a multicolored, purselike laptop. Computer makers have tried to make life easier by sidestepping Microsoft's Windows and adding their own interfaces but icrosoft's upcoming Windows 7 software should not be as bloated as the old Vista system becuase it will require less horsepower and storage space.

IBM $118.05 +0.38 0.32% 5,875,924 NYSE: Bus Wk p52 "Oracle Has customers Over a Barrel - As CEO Ellison ries to extend the company's reach into hardware, more corporate clients fret about its high prices and tough tactics" by Steve Hamm & Aaron Ricadela says Ellison has sepnt $30 bil to buy 56 companies over the past 4 years and has doubled its revenues to $24 bil and pushed Oracle's stock way up. The wave of mergers and acquisitions in corporate computing over the past half decade has been massive with 79 pruchases by MSFT, 60 by IBM, 40 by EMC and 34 by Hewlett-Packard. The software market is dominated by 4 firms: Oracle, Miscrosoft, SAP and IBM.

BusWk p70 "Oracle Has Customers Over a Barrel" says once mainly a hardware vendor of computers, IBM has used an acquisition strategy to expand into software and information tech services. Cisco Systems is the king of bolt on acquisitions where they pruchase a much smaller copany such as voice over Interent gearmaker Sipura then it uses its manaufcaturing smaarts and sales force to promote cutting edge products that fit into exisitng lines of business. It says MSFT is not good at deal making giving an example its $6 bil purchase of Web advertising company aQuantive at too high a price.

JPMorgan Chase JPM $42.5 -0.52 1.21% 26,632,296 NYSE: NYT pA1 "A Year After a Cataclysm, Little Change on Wall St. - Progress Is Slow on Regulatory Overhaul, Posing Risk of Even Bigger Crisis" by Alex Berenson says before the crisis, a dozen or so big banks formed the top tier; now Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are clerly the strongest, with Morgan Stanley struggling to compete. Bank of America and Citigroup re the weakest big banks, heavily reliant on government guarantees to survive.

Bus WK p26 "Giving Credit-Card Reforms The Slip - Card issuers are already proposing new fees and thinking up ways to subvert interest-rate restrctions" by Ben Levisohn says new credit card rules designed to curb abusive practices went into effect a few years ago but already lenders are finding loopholes. The law is called the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility & Disclosure Act of 2009 and covers things from billing to fees. Citigroup and JPM added annual fees to some products, targeting customerss who pay off their balances.

JNJ $60.42 -0.24 0.4% 8,429,891 NYSE: No mentions found.

Kraft KFT $26.1 -0.09 0.34% 17,331,866 NYSE: WSJ pB12 "Heard on the Street - Overheard" says the Nelson Peltz bought 3.5% of Cadbury in '07, and also bought 3% of Kraft and has pushed Cadbury to spin off businesses making it a better acquisition target while helping approve two new directors for Kraft's board and agitating for a deal. Since the bid was announced, Cadbury's stock is up 40% & Kraft's is down 7%.

Fin Times p7 "The art behind Kraft - A straight-talking chief dismisses talk of a culture clash with Cadbury - Woman in the News - Irene Rosenfeld" by Johnathan Birchall profiles Kraft's ceo and says the 56 year old is a roller baldder. She was president of her high school student council and got a degree in psychology at Cornell follwed by a masers in business admin. and then a PHd in marketing and statistics then began her food industry career in '81 at General Foods which later combined with Kraft after both were bought by Philip Morris.

BusWk p8 "says a combined Krafts and Cadbury would create a candy company with 15% of the global market, matching Mars.

BusWk p62 "Lower Your Taxes: Come to Switzerland" by Kerry Capell says this fall MCD will move its European headquarters to geneva from London, joining Kraft, Yahoo and Nissal to take advantage of low corporate taxes.

McDonald's MCD $54.39 -0.46 0.84% 11,899,878 NYSE: BusWk p62 "Lower Your Taxes: Come to Switzerland" by Kerry Capell says this fall MCD will move its European headquarters to geneva from London, joining Kraft, Yahoo and Nissal to take advantage of low corporate taxes.

Merck MRK $32.54 +0.58 1.81% 14,383,804 NYSE: NYT pB1 "Jury Deadlock Ends a Trial Over Merck's Bone Drug" by Natasha singer says a fed judge in the first jury trial involving the bone drug Fosamax declared a mistrial on Fri after jurors said they were deadlocked. Millions of women have taken Fosamax, made by Merck, to offset bone loss associated with menopause and some claim causes osteonecrosis fo the jaw.

WSJ pA4 "Big Firms, Little Competition Mark Federal Stimulus Deals" by Louise Radnofsky says most of the money that has flowed from the $787 bil stimulus plan has gone to the states but some huge companies have gotten millions of dollars such as drug makers including Merck & Co. for supplying vaccines for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Merck, Pfizer & GE are mentioned in an article about Six Sigma at Bus Wk p64 and how they use this controversial data driven system to reduce production defects and improve processes from marketing to manufacturing.

Microsoft MSFT $24.86 -0.14 0.56% 53,603,459 NASDAQ-GS: NYT pB2 "Award Is Overturned In a Patent Case - Microsoft wins recondideration of a $358 million award to Alcatel-Lucent" says the appeals court, while upholding a finding that Microsoft ifnringed the paent, ruled that the calculation of damages was incorrect in a verdict that was handed down in April '08.

NYT pB1 "Goodbye, Gobbledygook - PC Makers Are Dropping Sales Pitches Built On Complex Specs" says says a thing called a fact tag sits next to PCs at stores like Best Buy and Fry's, bewildering consumers with words like DDR2 RAM, 5400 rpm hard drives, L2 cache sizes of Core 2 Duos. Now pc makers are trying to make things easier to undestand. Intel has spent less time talking about its variety of chip brands and more time hawking products under its flagship Core brand. Hewlett-Packard hired the fashion designer Vivienne Tam to construct a multicolored, purselike laptop. Computer makers have tried to make life easier by sidestepping Microsoft's Windows and adding their own interfaces but Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 software should not be as bloated as the old Vista system becuase it will require less horsepower and storage space.

Fin Times "Review into Microsoft search deal deepends - Tie-up with Yahoo still under scrutiny" by Joseph Menn says the US justice Dept. has asked MSFT and Yahoo for more informatioa bout their propsoed partnership in search results and related advertising showing that antitrust officials are giving full scrutiny to the deal.

BusWk p70 "Oracle Has Customers Over a Barrel" says once mainly a hardware vendor of computers, IBM has used an acquisition strategy to exapnd into software and information tech services. Cisco Systems is the king of bolt on acquisitions where they pruchase a much smaller copany such as voice over Interent gearmaker Sipura then it uses its manaufcaturing smaarts and sales force to promote cutting edge products that fit into exisitng lines of business. It says MSFT is not good at deal making giving an example its $6 bil purchase of Web advertising company aQuantive at too high a price.

BusWk p76 "Microsoft Steps Up Its War on Hacks" by Stephen H. Wildstrom says it's offering free antivirus software that is simple to install and operated without a hitch.

Pfizer PFE $16.25 -0.09 0.55% 30,865,027 NYSE: Merck, Pfizer & GE are mentioned in an article about Six Sigma at Bus Wk p64 and how they use this controversial data driven system to reduce production defects and improve processes from marketing to manufacturing.

Procter & Gamble PG $55.64 -0.40 0.71% 12,303,922 NYSE: "P&G has Little Margin for Error as Households Trade Down" says PG acknowledged it needs to recapture market share lost to rivals that offer lower price products and laid out plans that included price cuts and heavy spending on innovation and advertising. The stock has since risen 3.5%. PG's market share has fallen 0.6% in the past year for its to 30 US product categories. PG's operating margin has advanced to 21% last year from 15.7% in '01. Pprices for resins and plastics have risen as oil has risen 55% this year. In the first half of the decade, PG's shres doubled.

3M MMM $74 -0.39 0.52% 3,299,453 NYSE: BusWk p73 "3M Posts Recovery Notes" by Gene Marcial says this global diversified company that makes Scotch tape, Post-it notes and Nexcare adhesive bankdage has been hit by the recession but now it is on a tear with its stock way up from a 52 week low of 40 on 3/6. Zacks upgraded its rating to outperform.

TRV $48.41 -0.11 0.23% 4,089,954 NYSE: No mentions found.

UTX $61.99 +0.04 0.06% 4,754,235 NYSE: No mentions found.

Verizon VZ
$31.26 -0.09 0.29% 20,561,699 NYSE: Bus Wk p56 in an article about Motorola says it is expected to debut its second Android phone, for Verizon wireless.

WMT $50.72 -0.31 0.61% 16,025,660 NYSE: No mentions found.

Here are the latest SEC filings as of 9/4/09 other than ownership filings and, except for certain cases, I do not include third party shareholder proposals:

Symbol & Co. Name/Date of Filing/Form Filed/ Comments

T AT&T: 8/28/09 two 8K's, one: annoucning it had reached agreement with the Communications Workers of America (on a new, three-year contract covering approximately 7,000 wireline employees (located across the U.S.) under the CWA Communications and Technologies contract, subject to approval by these employees. The second 8K said two subsidiaries of Tprovided redeemed certain long-term debt issues as of September 28, 2009.

Alcoa AA: 8/29/09 8K announcing that Alain J. P. Belda, executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of AA retired as an executive officer but is staying on as a director until April 23, 2010.

American Express AXP: 9/2/09 10Q

Bank of Am BAC: a free writing prospectus regarding issuance of $74 million in debt securities.

Boeing BA: 8/31 8K announcing the retirement of Scott E. Carson, Executive Vice President, President and Chief Executive Officer, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, effective January 1, 2010. Effective September 1, 2009, Mr. Carson will leave his current position and assume the role of Executive Vice President. Carson will be replaced by James F. Albaugh.

8/27 8K announcing a revised schedule for the 787 Dreamliner and a charge to third quarter earnings related to flight test aircraft.

Caterpiller CAT: 8/20/09 8K CAT filed Reg FD information concerning deliveries to users for its Machinery and Engines lines of business.

Chevron CVX: 8/6/09 10Q

Cisco CSCO: 8/5/09 8K CSCO reported its results of operations for its fiscal fourth quarter and fiscal year 2009 ended July 25, 2009.

Coke KO: 7/30/09 10Q

Disney DIS: 8/31/09 8K announcing a merger between its subsidiary, Maverick Acquisition Sub, Inc., and its subsidiary, Maverick Merger Sub, LLC, a single member Delaware limited liability company and Marvel Entertainment, Inc.. As a result of the Merger, Marvel will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Disney. Each share of Marvel common stock will be converted into $30 in cash and 0.7452 shares of Disney common stock.

DuPont DD: 8/13/09 8K announcing Nicholas C. Fanandakis, age 53, Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer & Chief Executive effective September 1, 2009 with an increase in annual salary from $387,708 to $500,000 and target short-term incentive award for 2009 will increase from $328,500 to $464,100. Mr. Fanandakis was named to his current position, Group Vice President- Applied BioSciences, in January 2008. Prior to that, he was vice president and general manager- DuPont Chemical Solutions Enterprise from September 2003 through September 2006 and vice president- Corporate Plans from October 2006 through December 2007. Jeffrey L. Keefer, EVP and Chief Financial Officer, will remain EVP and transition from the position of Chief Financial Officer to assume leadership responsibility for the DD's Performance Coatings business, corporate strategy development, Information Technology and overall cost and working capital productivity efforts effective November 1, 2009. Richard R. Goodmanson, EVP and Chief Operating Officer will retire effective September 30, 2009.

ExxonMobil XOM: 8/5/09 10Q

GE: 8/4/09 8K GE reached a settlement with the SEC & consented to a judgment of a fine of $50 million relating to four accounting matters arising in 2002 - 2003: the application of SFAS 133 to GE’s since-discontinued commercial paper hedging program and, separately, to certain swap derivatives where fees were paid or received at inception; a change in accounting for profits on spare parts in the commercial aviation engine business; and certain year-end transactions in the Rail business.

Hewlett-Packard HPQ: 8/18/09 8K re: release of 731/09 3Q results

Home Depot HD: 8/26 8K announcing amendments to their By-Laws dealing with resignations of directors.

Intel INTC: 9/2/09 8K announcing that as a result of stronger than expected demand for microprocessors and chipsets, Intel now expects revenue for the third quarter to be $9.0 billion, plus or minus $200 million, as compared to the previous range of $8.5 billion, plus or minus $400 million. The gross margin percentage for the third quarter is expected to be in the upper half of the previous range of 53 percent, plus or minus two percentage points. The company is scheduled to report its third-quarter financial results on Oct. 13.

IBM: 7/28/09 10Q

JPMorganChase JPM: 9/2/09 Free Writing Prospectus relating to Core commodity C-IGAR Sigma Long-Short Index

Johnson & Johnson JNJ: 8/4/09 10Q

Kraft KFT: 8/5/09 10Q

McDonalds MCD: 8/11/09 re: press release "McDonald’s Reports Global Comparable Sales Up 4.3% in July"

Merck MRK: 8/3/09 Sched 14A proxy material re: updated of acquisition of Schering-Plough

Microsoft MSFT: 8/24/09 S-8 Securities to be offered to employees in employee benefit plans

Pfizer PFE: 9/2/09 8K announcing an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to settle an investigation regarding off-label promotional practices related to Bextra, which Pfizer withdrew from the market in 2005 and other DOJ investigations involving off-label promotional practices concerning Zyvox, Geodon and Lyrica, and allegations related to payments to healthcare professionals involving these and nine other Pfizer medicines. Pfizer previously disclosed a related $2.3 billion charge to its fourth-quarter and full-year 2008 earnings in connection with the DOJ agreement in principle on January 26, 2009. PFE has reached agreements with attorneys general in 432 states to settle state civil consumer protection allegations regarding promotional practices concerning Geodon. PFE will pay a total of $33 million to the settling states.

Procter & Gamble PG: 8/28/09 S-8 Securities to employees and 8/28 8K annoucning public offering of $500,000,000 aggregate principal amount of 3.150% Notes due 2015.
Also a PG subsidiary, Procter & Gamble International Funding SCA issued $1,000,000,000 aggregate principal amount of 1.350% Notes due 2011.

3M MMM: 8/5/09 3M contributed 8,329,862 shares of its common stock with a corresponding dollar value of approximately $600 million to its defined benefit pension plan, the 3M Employee Retirement Income Plan, made from treasury stock.

Travelers TRV: 8/5/09 10Q/A Amended 10Q

United Technologies UTX: 7/24/09 10Q

Verizon Communications Inc. VZ: 9/2/09: 8K annoucning retirement of Dennis F. Strigl, President and Chief Operating Officer of Verizon Communications Inc. (at end of '09 and also VZ raised its quarterly dividend 3.3% to 47.5 Cents per share. This is the third consecutive year that VZ has approved a quarterly dividend increase in September.

Wal-Mart WMT: 8/13/09 8K re 7/31/09 2Q report of earnings

Here are the CEOs of the Dow 30 Companies:

T Randall L. Stephenson
AA Klaus Kleinfeld
AXP Kenneth I. Chenault
BAC Kenneth D. Lewis
BA W. James McNerney, Jr.
CAT James W. Owens
CVX David O'Reilly
CSCO John Chambers
KO Muhtar Kent
DIS Rogert Iger
DD Nicholas C. Fanandakis replaces Ellen Kullman 9/1/09
XOM Rex W. Tillerson
GE Jeffrey R. Immelt
HPQ Mark Hurd
HD Frank Blake
INTC Paul S. Otellini
IBM Samuel J. Palmisano
JPM Jamie Dimon
JNJ William C. Weldon
KFT Irene Rosenfeld
MCD Jim Skinner
MRK Robert Clark
MSFT Steve Ballmer
PFE Jeffrey Kindler
PG Bob McDonald
MMM George W. Buckley
TRV Jay S. Fishman
UTX Louis Chenevert
VZ Ivan Seidenberg
WMT Mike Duke