Jim Cramer's Top 4 DJIA Picks For 2012 (T, BA, GE, KFT)

With this being the first week of the year, many analysts, market pundits, and media outlets are revamping their picks and outlooks for 2012.  Jim Cramer on CNBC’s Mad Money this week came out with his four favorite Dow Jones Industrial Average stock picks for 2012.  All of his “Diamonds of the Dow” were for very different reasons and the picks were as follows: AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA), General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) and Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT).

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) was Jim Cramer’s first pick of the week, with its higher dividend and slightly better share discount to peak prices being noted as the reason.  The $4 billion break-up fee may have taken out too much from the value and the carrier’s iPhone business has held up better than many would have expected.

Read Also: Modified Methodology Predicts 12% DJIA Gain In 2012 to 13,678

Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) was Jim Cramer’s top pick for the DJIA stocks on Friday.  His reason is not defense as much as it is the 787 Dreamliner’s slow start and secular growth driver ahead,  Cramer touted a huge order backlog in other planes which have already been developed years ago and showed how it has so much pricing power in the Airbus duopoly that AMR was even given permission to honor its pending aircraft purchases while AMR is in bankruptcy.

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) was touted by Jim Cramer as one of the top DJIA picks for 2012.  Cramer sees more than 10% upside, but that is in-line with street estimates and some analysts are even more positive than Cramer.  Cramer sees the recent dividend hike sooner than expected as having been one catalyst and improved and diversified core business metrics.

Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT) was picked by Cramer in the middle of the week after a positive performance of about 17% in 2011 and with its 3.1% dividend yield.  The value he sees is in this long pending break-up of the company because it is too large and diverse in food for the street to grasp right now.  This is even though he called it a no-man’s stock that is neither appealing to growth nor value investors right now.

JON C. OGG