Any DJIA stocks left selling under $20?

By Dian Vujovich

With the Dow Jones Industrial Averages briefly sneaking past, but closing slightly under, the 12,000 marker yesterday, I decided to take my occasional look to see if any of the 30 were selling under 20 bucks a share.

If you recall, last year I did the same thing a number of times and for anyone willing to play the game of investing in any of the under 20s then, there were sweet profits to be made. But that was yester-year. And as every investor has been reminded— at least a zillion times—past performance is no indication of what the future will bring.

With that in mind, as of market’s close yesterday, 1/26/11, four stocks had closing prices under 20 dollars per share. In alphabetical order they were Alcoa (AA) at $16.60; Bank of America (BAC) at $13.85; General Electric (GE) and Pfizer (PFE) at $18.36.

A little bit about the four. General Electric recently increased its dividend and has a current yield is 2.80 percent -you can’t find that in a money market account. Alcoa traded under 10 bucks over the last year, now is nearing it’s 1-year high and its dividend yield is 0.7 percent –maybe you can find that in a money market account. Bank of America just announced it’s paying a quarterly dividend of 1 penny a share on its common stock (big woo) and $1.75 per share on the 7 percent Cumulative Redeemable Preferred Shares. And Pfizer, have read that it’s largest pharmaceutical company in the world, has a dividend yield of 4.3 percent—you won’t even find on any short-term bond.

Of course I know it’s not fair to compare the dividend yields on any stock to those on money market accounts and/or even bonds. Stocks are fair riskier and bond yields subject to interest rate fluctuations. Nonetheless, if the market continues to rally, and that’s a big ‘if” because market directions have always gyrated like a hula dancer on a dashboard, there are definitely stocks worth looking at stocks in this index.