This article is a guest contribution from Bespoke Investment Group.
It's been awhile since we checked up on the year-to-date performance of the 30 Dow members, so below we provide that information along with their overbought/oversold levels and current dividend yields. Most Dow stocks have moved lower over the past week, and currently there are only four stocks in the index trading in overbought territory -- McDonald's (MCD), Pfizer (PFE), AT&T (T), and Verizon (VZ). How long has it been since Telecom stocks have been the leaders of any index? Even after today's big declines, not too many members of the index are oversold either. Bank of America (BAC), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Intel (INTC), JP Morgan (JPM), and Merck (MRK) are the only stocks currently with the oversold distinction. Interestingly, Merck (MRK) is oversold, while Pfizer (PFE) is overbought.
Dividend yields are looking more and more attractive as fixed income yields get lower and lower. And there's no shortage of high yielders in the Dow. The two Telecom stocks (VZ and MRK) -- both currently overbought -- have the highest dividend yields in the index at more than 6%. The two pharmaceuticals in the index -- MRK and PFE -- have the next highest yields at slightly less than 4.5%. Next comes DuPont (4.04%), Kraft (3.98%), Chevron (3.80%), and then Johnson & Johnson (3.68%). Don't look now but Intel (INTC) has one of the higher dividend yields in the Dow as well at 3.33%. One would never think it, but Intel has a higher yield than names like Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, and General Electric. Go figure.
In terms of performance so far in 2010, perpetual loser Alcoa (AA) is unsurprisingly down the most at -33.87%. Other big losers are archaic tech names Microsoft (MSFT) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). Both are down just about 20% year to date. Boeing (BA) had the top spot on the list for most of 2010, but Caterpillar (CAT) and Chevron (CVX) have both eclipsed BA with gains of more than 20% at this point in the year. Boeing is still not far behind at +19.38%, however. McDonald's is the last name in the index that is up more than 10%, and Kraft (KFT), General Electric (GE), Disney (DIS), and American Express (AXP) are the only other names in positive territory.
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