CONSUELO MACK: You're going to get yield.
HERSH COHEN: Kimberly-Clark. Heinz. I'm talking household companies. 3M. Everybody uses their products. The companies aren't going away.
CONSUELO MACK: So, let's go over the list. And it's such a treat to have you here naming names. In 2008, one of the most popular features on the WealthTrack website was Hersh's List from 2008.
HERSH COHEN: Ooh, I'm glad to hear that.
CONSUELO MACK: And at that time, you called them first-rate companies with great balance sheets and attractive dividend yields. Now, the current list that you've got has some of the same names. So, and we will have the new list and the old list on our website, but ...
HERSH COHEN: By the way, there's nothing wrong with the old list, except I did drop one stock. BP. I dropped it.
CONSUELO MACK: Right. British Petroleum. So, tell us about your British Petroleum decision.
HERSH COHEN: Okay. And it shows you why you have to monitor things, and it also shows you why you need diversification. I love BP. I thought they were doing everything right. They were a big dividend raiser. We felt very secure about the dividend. When they couldn't get that well capped within four days, and they tried putting that big dome on top of it and it didn't, I said to the young guys in our place, I said, "Listen I was there for Exxon Valdez. It's still reviled by people, Exxon is." I said, "You're going to see pictures of birds on the shore. Let's just get out." It was 48.5. We sold all our stock. And, we were maybe three days too late, but I wanted to see, if they could get it capped. They couldn't. I said, "Nothing good is going to happen." So we sold BP. Am I proud of it? You know, it was a hard decision to make, because we had lived with it for a long time and hated to give up the dividend, which they had to cut because of the--
CONSUELO MACK: Exactly. Politics.
HERSH COHEN: Politically, of course.
CONSUELO MACK: Right. So, that's interesting. But, the names that you are repeating now are UPS, United Parcel Service.
HERSH COHEN: Love it.
CONSUELO MACK: 3M. Kimberly-Clark, the Travelers, Johnson & Johnson, AT&T. So, again, these companies are very familiar companies to you, and the story now is compelling because, why?
HERSH COHEN: High dividends? I mean, high relative to everything else. Great business models. Products that everybody wants or needs. The products tend to get used up. You'll notice there's no company on there where it relies on X number of sales of heavy things in a quarter to be any good. You know, would I buy a Caterpillar tractor at a certain price? Yes. But is it a regular dividend grower? I don't know. I can't tell you how many earth-movers are going to be sold in them. When these companies all make products that people want or need, the products get used up. That's a great thing. Heinz ketchup. It's going to be here in 20 years. Did you mention Heinz yet?
