Dodging The Dow Drop: Coke (KO), GE (GE), And Cat (CAT)

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jul 11, 11:22AM EDT

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Twenty-seven of the Dow components are down. And, three are playing defense in an brutal market: Coca-Cola (KO), GE (GE), and Caterpillar (CAT). Each of these is up a modest amount.

With the DJIA off over 200 points, financial stocks in the index are taking on more water. AIG (AIG) is off almost 8%. Bank of America (BAC) is down almost 7%. Boeing (BA) is off nearly 5%, even after an upbeat forecast about its next 20 year prospects.

Coke should be holding its own. Most of what it sells is inexpensive, global, and easy for the consumer to find. Its balance sheet is as good as any. If earnings suffer, the ding will be minor.

GE (GE) disappointed some investors today, but, it held its full-year forecast, something which a number of companies may not be able to do.

Caterpillar (CAT) may be an odd stock to be rising on a hard day. Industrial equipment can be cyclical, but the firm says that the demand for its products is unusually strong overseas.

The few stocks which are up today are likely to hold well if the market continues its slide.

Douglas A. McIntyre

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.