To keep things even for U.S. investors, we screened out the ADRs held by Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-B) even though one is mentioned at the end of the screen to keep them on the list. Of the dozens of stocks held by the conglomerate, these are the eight highest dividends in the Buffett portfolio. We have put the stocks in order of the highest yields first and added in color on each if applicable. As you will see, most of the Buffett top dividend yields still offer upside to their consensus price targets for value investors looking for growth.

ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) leads the list with a common stock dividend yield of 4.2%. The company has pledged to keep its dividend strong, and this puts it higher than other oil giants. This stock is now within about 1% of new 52-week highs and the $62.42 share price compares to an analyst consensus price target of about $63.98.

Gannett Co. Inc. (NYSE: GCI) has a surprising yield of 3.6% for its common stock holders. This remains a small holding of Warren Buffett but investors might be surprised that the newspaper and media stock has risen to the point that it is up almost 100% from its 52-week low. At $21.62 as of now, the stock trades right at the $21.61 consensus analyst price target, and the 52-week trading range is $12.17 to $22.21.

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) offers a 3.3% yield, partly because shares have pulled back since earnings. The earnings report was not stellar by any means, but we think GE shares were sold off too hard after earnings when you consider the state of the bull market. Shares are at $23.24, and GE’s 52-week high is $23.90. Analysts have a consensus target price of $25.33. GE is likely to have a dividend hike yet again later this year.

Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) is a top bank and Buffett keeps buying more and more of this stock each and every quarter. The 3.2% common stock yield is rather impressive, and this remains at the top of the seven safest banks in America. This bank is challenging the highs from before the recession again, if you back out the dividend payments. At $39.30, its stock hit that multiyear high on May 15, and analysts have a consensus price target of $40.76.

Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG) has lifted its dividend and is yielding 3.1% after a dividend hike in April. Buffett has trimmed the stake here over time, but activist investors have been on management’s back and pressing it to run the company better. If P&G keeps up its efforts, it could be worth even more. The market cap of $221 billion already makes it one of the largest public companies out there. With shares at $80.68, the consensus analyst target price is $82.78.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) is a personal holding of Warren Buffett rather than Berkshire Hathaway. The bank pays a 3.1% dividend, despite not getting to be as aggressive on its capital plans. Jamie Dimon has been under fire here to split the CEO and chairman roles, but Buffett recently has praised Dimon as a great CEO who also deserves his chairman role. We would caution that one analyst showed that some $20 billion (10% of the share price) could come out of the stock if Dimon leaves the bank because there is a management replacement vacuum right now with no heir apparent. With shares at $51.09, the consensus analyst target is $56.21.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) recently raised its dividend. The drug and consumer products giant has been a habitual dividend-raising machine, and its product quality controls appear to be over. The 3.1% payout is impressive when you consider that this stock just hit an all-time high on May 15. Note that the consensus analyst price target of $86.50 is actually less than the current price of $87.64.

United Parcel Service Inc. (NYSE: UPS) ranked as number eight with a dividend yield of 2.8%. This comes as the stock is challenging all-time highs, and the shipping giant has raised its dividend payment consistently. With shares at $88.60, analysts have a consensus price target of $93.09 on the stock.

GlaxoSmithKline PLC (NYSE: GSK) is the ADR of the group, and it was only included because it screens out as having such a high yield at 4.3%. That would have put it at the top of the list. As this is an ADR and subject to currency changes altering the payouts each time in dollars for ADR holders, we are only representing the Yahoo! screen for the nominal payout rather than adding color here.

Jon C. Ogg

*The full Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway portfolio can be seen here.

The new Buffett holdings are below.

American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP) was roughly 151.6 million shares, SAME AS last quarter.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (NYSE: BK) was almost 19 million shares, which appears to be slightly lower but it had been raised before. What matters here is that it remains a substantial holding still.

Chicago Bridge & Iron Co. (NYSE: CBI) was a NEW POSITION at just over 6.5 million shares worth over $400 million.

Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) was more than 400 million shares due to the stock split of 2012, but this is virtually the SAME AS BEFORE.

ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) is the SAME POSITION at 24.1 million shares, but this is lower than in prior quarters.

Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST) was the SAME POSITION at 4,333,363 shares.

DaVita Inc. (NYSE: DVA) was a LARGER POSITION and already more than a 10% stake and we recently saw that Berkshire Hathaway had entered into a standstill agreement not to buy more than 25% of the company after already having increased its stake recently. This was listed as 14.97 million shares as of March 31 versus 13.6 million shares before.

Deere & Co. (NYSE: DE) was the SAME POSITION at roughly 4 million shares.

DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV) was HIGHER YET AGAIN at 37.275 million shares versus almost 34 million shares and that was also higher than before.

Gannett Co. (NYSE: GCI) was the SAME POSITION of 1.74 million shares.

General Electric Corp. (NYSE: GE) is listed as the SAME POSITION at 588,900 shares, but this is still way down from prior reports.

General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) is the SAME POSITION at 25 million shares, but this was previously up from smaller positions.

GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) is the SAME POSITION at 1.51 million shares.

The conglomerate is set to report earnings on Friday ahead of the annual meeting, but earnings do not really matter here. Mr. Buffett has said over and over that Berkshire Hathaway could make its earnings magically go up or down based upon purchase or sale transactions. He maintains over and over that the book value per share is what really matters here. As always, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-B) and Warren Buffett’s latest full stock holdings can be tracked here.

These are the portfolio changes that 24/7 Wall St. believes Mr. Buffett and portfolio managers Todd Combs and Ted Weschler have made ahead of the annual meeting.

Archer Daniels Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM) was a new position at the last report and with Buffett giving more investing money of about $1 billion to Ted Weschler and Todd Coombs lately, our bet is that this position has been added to. ADM was a new position of 5.95 million shares worth some $163.1 million as of the end of 2012.

DaVita Inc. (NYSE: DVA) was already more than a 10% stake and the firm keeps raising its stake. Frankly, we would not be shocked if this company was just acquired outright down the road by Berkshire Hathaway.

DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV) has been added to and we see no reason that the latest stake of almost 34 million shares would not be added to yet again. The satellite TV provider is up 16% year to date, just hit a new high on Friday and is up by close to 4% since the end of the first quarter.

General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) has been added to before. It is possible that Buffett is adding to the stake here, although he would likely want to buy these at a discount in the government offering of “Government Motors” stock rather than in the open market.

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) is going to likely keep growing for Berkshire Hathaway as the company keeps buying back stock and recently raised its dividend. Warren Buffett told CNBC, “I won’t be a seller of IBM.” This was over 68 million shares last quarter for a 6.03% stake, and our bet is that Buffett added a bit to it after the stock went on sale after a poor earnings report.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) is likely to be void entirely now in the Berkshire Hathaway stock portfolio. This was a mere 327,100 shares last time and has shrunk through time. The stake is so small that it was likely just not exited right before the end of the last quarter.

Moody’s Corp. (NYSE: MCO) has been confirmed that the stock holding is shrinking here. Berkshire Hathaway recently sold off about 1.7 million shares of . The position is very profitable for the conglomerate despite the woes of the past for the ratings agency. Buffett’s stake is still over 26 million shares.

Precision Castparts Corp. (NYSE: PCP) was a larger stake last quarter at roughly 2 million shares versus being a new position of 1.25 million shares in the prior quarter. If the new portfolio managers have new funds, they may have added to this even the stock has been range-bound so far in 2013.

Berkshire Hathaway keeps adding over and over to its position of Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) and we expect that to have continued in the first quarter. What is perhaps more interesting is that Bloomberg showed a video with Warren Buffett praising J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) and CEO Jamie Dimon. Buffett told Bloomberg that he is in full 100% support of Jamie Dimon and his dual role as CEo and Chairman.

24/7 Wall St. praises dividends. We also want to call out the myriad of great companies that need to realize that times demand investor payouts. A few companies are still buying growth, and we have identified some of these players as well. The thesis behind offering a solid dividend is that it instills confidence in investors that the company has earnings visibility for years even when the business cycle slows.

Having a real dividend policy may also be the key to keeping nervous investors from fleeing and going into cash or Treasury bonds, which pay almost nothing these days. There are just still too many companies in denial that they are still growth companies when they need to start directly rewarding shareholders. Some companies can get away without paying out a single cent to owners because the value of growth is so strong. That list is shrinking these days. Most companies we identified are in what we would call the “Dividend Sinners” category.

Our review focuses on Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBY), Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A), Dollar General Corp. (NYSE: DG), Dollar Tree Inc. (NASDAQ: DLTR), eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY), Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA), EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC), Express Scripts Inc. (NASDAQ: ESRX), Jack in the Box Inc. (NASDAQ: JACK), Teradyne Inc. (NYSE: TER), United Continental Holdings Inc. (NYSE: UAL), Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Zebra Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ: ZBRA). We have handicapped whether investors might expect a dividend in the near-term or long-term from each of these as well.

The first order of business is to identify some of the great companies that have started paying a dividend since we (and others) have called for them to act with dividend payments in the past year or two. A few would include Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL), Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN), Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ: SYMC) and NASDAQ OMX Group Inc. (NASDAQ: NDAQ).

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was on last week’s list because it was at a new 52-week low and losing favor by the day. Shares listed lower this past week but ultimately closed up for the week. It is hard to celebrate a rise from $430.47 to $431.72 this last Friday, but that was the highest close of the week for Apple. What is starting to drive interest are these persistent rumors that Apple is aiming to launch a cheaper iPhone for emerging markets so that it can capture more market share and reach a wider audience. Our friends over at Motley Fool pointed out that this was actually the third time this rumor has been around, so they wonder if there are legs to the rumor.

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBY) was touted by Andrew Bary in Barron’s as potentially being a takeover target for Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A). We would caution that it has not paid a dividend yet, and its shares have been “on sale” at a discount of 20% from its high due to poor sales metrics. Barron’s said it has strong profits and steady growth and was a great story in the 20th century that could be an even better story in the 21st century.

Elan Corp. PLC (NYSE: ELN) saw its stock rise by more than 5.5% after the close on Friday to $12.10 after the company provided an update on the Tysabri restructuring transaction and further information regarding the company’s recently announced proposed $1 billion share repurchase program. The deal closing with Biogen Idec Inc. (NASDAQ: BIIB) is expected to occur in the coming weeks, and the share buyback will take place on Monday in a Dutch tender with a price range of $11.25 to $13.00 per share.

Eldorado Gold Corp. (NYSE: EGO) has many projects around the world, but it is battered just like the rest of the major gold miners and producers. It owns 95% of a project in Greece that drew thousands of protesters in the area and that was after the site had been firebombed last month. Again, this is just one of the future projects but it is a hold up nonetheless. At $9.51, the 52-week range is $9.22 to $16.20.

Genworth Financial Inc. (NYSE: GNW) closed within 2% of a new 52-week high on Friday. The company is still trying to turn around and get out from under some prior mortgage insurance and other operations. Barron’s touted the stock as finally about to be rewarding investors. A new, well-respected CEO is partly credited, and at about half of book value the price thrown out is that Genworth could be worth as much as $18 or more.

READ ALSO: BEWARE AN ACTIVIST INVESTOR BUBBLE

Interactive Brokers Group Inc. (NASDAQ: IBKR) took the top spot in Barron’s for Online Broker of the Year with superb trading technology, improved portfolio analysis, and enhanced educational offerings. Also touted was its mobile app alerting you to market opportunities around the world in real time as well as the ability to trade almost every asset class. We might not consider this a stock story per se, but Interactive Brokers has a market cap of a mere $704 million. That is tiny compared to the big-three like E*TRADE Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: ETFC) at $3.2 billion, TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (NYSE: AMTD) at $11.4 billion, and Charles Schwab Corp. (NYSE: SCHW) at $22.5 billion.

iShares MSCI Italy Capped Index (NYSEMKT: EWI) will be on watch on Monday after Fitch downgraded Italy’s sovereign credit rating on Friday. The Italian markets were already closed, and this ETF dropped about 1% before recovering to close flat at $12.61 on Friday, against a 52-week range of $9.21 to $14.63.

Live Nation Entertainment Inc. (NYSE: LYV) closed within seven cents of a 52-week high on Friday, at $11.26 against the range of $8.01 to $11.33. Barron’s touted the $2.1 billion concert promotion giant as adding another 5 million people to its venue audience by 2015, and an analyst for the Cove Street Capital firm was quoted saying that stock could rise to $14.50 over the next couple of years. Wall St. has a consensus target of $12.33 for the one-year outlook and a street-high of $14, but we would caution that the number of analysts here is very small.

Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) had reports from all over the Web on Friday night that Sir Howard Stringer was planning to retire as chairman of Sony in June. Stringer stepped down as CEO last year after taking on that role in 2005. Unfortunately for Sony, the loss of importance has continued. Investors may take this as good news as a result, but the move may not be viewed the same as Stringer leaving the CEO post. With its ADRs at $15.59, the 52-week range is $9.57 to $22.05.

READ ALSO: STOCKS WHERE ANALYSTS EXPECT 50% to 100% UPSIDE

ViroPharma Inc. (NASDAQ: VPHM) was touted on Friday evening by Jim Cramer on Mad Money as an orphan drug maker that is just starting to attract attention and its blood disorder drug called Cinryze could fetch $700 million in annual sales. This was up more than 4% at $26.60 Friday evening, against a 52-week range of $19.02 to $31.36. Its market cap as of the close was $1.67 billion.

VIVUS Inc. (NASDAQ: VVUS) rose by 2.4% to $11.70 on Friday. The company sent out an email late on Friday confirming that affiliates of First Manhattan Co. have an 8.8% stake of the outstanding shares and that the group has submitted a notice of nomination of six director candidates. As a reminder, this emerging drug player as been held down and it is one of the stocks that Wall St. analysts believe has more than 50% upside to the current share price. We still cannot help but to ask if all of this activist shareholder trend is forming an activist investor bubble.

Westport Innovations Inc. (NASDAQ: WPRT) had its CEO come on Jim Cramer’s Mad Money for an interview on CNBC. Even after shares are up 12% since his last appearance, Cramer said that Westport remains the way to play the move to CNG engines. At $29.16, its 52-week range is $21.93 to $50.19 and its market cap is $1.56 billion.

Barron’s listed four chip stocks that could rebound that haven’t risen with the market in “Tech Trader” this weekend. These were Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM), Skyworks Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ: SWKS), Cirrus Logic Inc. (NASDAQ: CRUS) and LSI Corp. (NASDAQ: LSI).

No rest for the wicked. Stay tuned!

Just a few years ago, the common themes were out-of-control finances and out-of-control corporate leadership with no accountability to shareholders (nor to any moral hazards). The pendulum has now swung the other way, and perhaps it is starting to swing too far. Perhaps. Now anyone with access to millions of dollars or billions of dollars can aggressively go after a company for corporate governance issues. This can be over executive compensation, how a company should be capitalized, what forms of stock it should have, what terms it should have for a merger, whether it should split the roles of CEO and chairman, anti-takeover provisions, retirement compensation and on and on.

If you begged us to guess whether activism will grow or contract, we would think that activism will continue. Does that mean that there is not a risk nor that this is a bubble that will not burst and end badly for the public? Those are complicated issues and it may be quite some time before we know the answer. What is so interesting here is that the activist world very recently has targeted what may be hundreds of billions dollars worth of companies.

There are many instances where we cannot help but wonder if an activist bubble is helping to bolster many stocks. For starters, activists can often drive up a stock and create wonderful value. Sometimes they can get out of control, and sometimes they can go out and create absolute value destruction. The saying “there is no free lunch” is one that cannot be ignored, even by activists.

One big activist dilemma is General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE). GE is so large that forcing change is hard to do, but calls have been made over and over to break up the conglomerate’s empire. The problem is that weak units during one part of the business cycle act as cover for the other units when the business cycle changes. An activist might have said that GE needed to not cut its dividend during the recession, but this freed up enough capital that it probably saved quite literally tens of thousands of jobs at GE in the recession. Others have called for new leadership other than Jeff Immelt, while Immelt’s greatest blunders may simply have been that he took over after Jack Welch, when GE was trading close to 30 times earnings, and Immelt’s first day as CEO was quite literally a few days before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

A few powerful men with many financial backers behind them have gone after some really big companies. Again, this train is moving what is nothing short of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of companies. What you have not seen is why this may be a bubble. There is a serious risk in driving shareholder value in the short-term. Anyone can go in and propose layoffs, a spin-off, a recapitalization, a change in management and the like. The problem is that this effort can gut a company or it can merely be a win during one part of the business cycle.

Many efforts can be taken to unlock shareholder value. Special dividends can be issued. Debt can be taken on to pay a dividend or to buy back shares. Companies can go out and seek strategic alternatives. Companies can make their boards easy to change or they can get rid of any barriers that might lead to takeovers. There are dozens of more things they can do. The question to ask is whether creating short-term value comes at the cost of adding too much long-term risk. These risks are potentially serious issues that investors chasing activists have to consider.

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM), Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX), 3M Co. (NYSE: MMM), McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD), United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX), Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) and Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) will likely be the seven stocks of the 30 DJIA components that lead the index to 15,000. At issue is that the DJIA is a price-weighted index that does not care about the market capitalization. These seven DJIA stocks account for 43% of the entire weighting of the 30 DJIA components.

For instance, General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) has a $245 billion market cap, yet its $23.59 share price generates a weighing of only 1.27%. Then you have 3M Co. (NYSE: MMM) with a 5.63% weighting because its price is $104.45, and United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX) has a 4.9% weighting in the DJIA because its price is $89.13. Combined, two these companies have a market cap of $159 billion. So GE is worth almost 150% of the market cap, but its weighting in the DJIA at 1.27% compares to the combined weighting of 10.73% for 3M and United Tech. Now you know how silly the DJIA can be as an index, even if investors are usually referring to the DJIA when they say “the market.”

If you took the bottom seven DJIA components, you barely get a 7% combined weighting in the DJIA. These stocks could all double in a static scenario, where the other stocks remain the same, and you would barely get close to the 15,000 mark.

A review at IndexArb.com shows just how much these weightings matter, with a cumulative weighting after each component:

1) IBM 11.13; 11.13
2) Chevron 6.35; 17.48
3) 3M 5.63; 23.11
4) McDonald’s 5.16; 28.27
5) United Technologies 4.90; 33.17
6) Caterpillar 4.86; 38.03
7) Exxon Mobil 4.83; 42.86

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) is at $206.53, against a 52-week range of $181.85 to $211.79. The consensus target price is $225.75, implying an expected gain of 9.3%. IBM’s dividend yield is 1.7% but has been rising, and the company keeps buying back stock. Warren Buffett has bought a large stake that is likely to rise as well.

Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) trades at $117.93, against a 52-week range of $95.73 to $118.53. Its consensus target price is $124.51, implying upside of 5.6%, and it has a 3.1% dividend yield. Imagine if oil demand is even a tad higher than expected in 2013, or that even the forecasts for global oil demand go up in 2014 when the broader global economy is expected to be stronger. Chevron is likely to go to all-time highs, and it is expected to raise its dividend in the coming weeks.

3M Co. (NYSE: MMM) is at $104.45, against a 52-week and all-time high of $104.81. Analysts have a price target of only $106.33, for a gain of close to 2% expected. The problem is that analysts have been slow to lift their price targets here, and 3M’s 2.4% dividend has been raised over and over and has much more room to grow. The trick is that the highest price target from analysts is $125, so some are already much more bullish here. If 3M hits $115, that is effectively a 10% gain. Plus that 2.4% dividend helps out as well.

McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD) trades at $95.81, against a 52-week range of $83.31 to $100.44. This was the best DJIA stock of 2011 and was the worst of 2012. The fast-food giant’s consensus price target of $99.82 implies upside of only 4.2%, but there is a 3.2% dividend, and the old consensus price target back before the 2012 sell-off was closer to $110. If McDonald’s gets its growth back with its healthier choices and affordable meals, there is more than 10% upside at the Golden Arches again.

United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX) trades at $89.13, against a 52-week range of $70.71 to $91.51. The consensus price target of $96.47 already implies 8.2% upside, and there is the 2.4% dividend yield as well. The highest analyst target is $105, and the analysts have not been aggressive in raising their targets yet. That implies 18% upside to the street-high target.

Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) trades at $90.21 and has been dragged down by emerging market and China growth. The consensus price target is back up at $111 now, implying upside of 23%. There is also the dividend of 2.3% that has a lot of room to grow if the company wants, and we would point out that Caterpillar shares have already traded at $114.25 in the past year. This one does not even have to hit a new high for the analysts to be right here.

Last on the list of seven stocks is Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM). At $89.61, it has a 52-week range of $77.13 to $93.67. Analysts have implied upside of 5.5% with the $94.51 price target, but there is a 2.5% dividend yield and its dividend is also expected to be raised in the coming weeks. If global oil demand forecasts are raised later this year for 2014 as the global economy is expected to recover, then the street-high analyst target price of $105 is suddenly much more realistic, and that would bring gains of 17%, plus the higher dividend.

It is almost sad the way that the DJIA is calculated. That being said, the rest of the 23 DJIA components only have to remain relatively the same while these top seven DJIA components only have to live up to expectations. That gets you to right at DJIA 15,000.

Here is something else to consider. These seven great stocks will not really perform in a vacuum, because that is not how things work in real life. That being said, if the rest of the market performs and the economy recovers as expected, then you could be looking at DJIA 16,000 at some point in 2014.

With a lot of gains for holders and with shares at new highs, Buffett may be a bit more confident and less joking about mistakes than in the past. We also expect for the same sort of trends about who ultimately will succeed Buffett to run the Berkshire Hathaway empire upon his retirement, death or incapacitation. On the succession front, we expect that Buffett simply maintains that he and the company have a successor but will not disclose exactly who it is.

Buffett made some big changes to the total public stock holdings, but the involvement in the H.J. Heinz Co. (NYSE: HNZ) acquisition for more than $20 billion is something we expect to hear about. The real kicker is that Buffett already has said he would love to do another deal, but he does not like to telegraph industries nor companies because he does not want to drive up the price he would have to pay.

Another issue that may get notice is that Berkshire’s MidAmerican Energy has done solar deals that involve First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) and SunPower Corp. (NASDAQ: SPWR). We would never expect Buffett to be a buyer of solar stocks. No way. But merely endorsing the solar sector’s benefits (without making note of tax giveaways of course) may be enough to excite some investors after the sector’s recent pullback on poor earnings.

Buffett also has continued his quest to gobble up newspapers and old media outfits, and it should not be a surprise if he addresses how he is buying up great old assets at a price that can mutate and transform with the changes to digital media ahead. The justification likely would be that these media presences are the most entrenched in the local market.

We also expect to hear praise of housing and that there are still great deals available for buyers. Buffett already has said he would just love to buy up a bunch of houses and either use them for rent or as future asset sales down the road, if they could be administered properly. Based on this idea, we already have seen an IPO filing from a competing interest to this from American Homes 4 Rent.

Two other possible companies worth noting are DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc. (NYSE: DVA) and Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC). Team Buffett already bought up more DaVita shares. It was reported that the team has yet again added more shares to the stake in Wells Fargo.

We would not be surprised if Berkshire Hathaway’s earnings are incredibly strong. After all, the stock’s new high is a testament to something. We certainly expect that if that is the case, Buffett will remind investors not to get too excited about the company’s earnings in any single quarter or year. Buffett has warned over and over that the company could take moves at any time that would make the earnings look better or worse, and his past reminders have been that the book value per share is the metric he wants to be judged on.

Lastly, it would be a total guess of what sort of analogies will come from the Oracle of Omaha. Do not be surprised if Warren Buffett says that he expects America’s greatest days are still ahead, and we will leave the action of believing him up to you.

Several banks were very close to meeting all of our financial, historic and transformative criteria, and they may be eligible for the list of safest banks in 2014, or even after the stress tests and after decisions have been formalized over returning capital to shareholders. Some of the data may seem investor oriented, but the reality is that institutional depositors, creditors and trading partners generally evaluate peers with many of the same metrics. The global economic recovery has lost some steam at the same time that the stock market has recovered. The public needs to know which of the larger banks are safe, regardless whether the economy stabilizes or worsens again.

The criteria to be among the safest banks has to be very strict by nature. It also has to apply to the larger institutions, which are either money-center banks or have multiple-state geographies. To make the list, a bank either had to have a minimum of 100 branches or it had to have retail branches in multiple states as the base level for relevance and importance. We used banks with a minimum market capitalization of $3 billion and a minimum asset base of $20 billion. These safest banks had to have the bulk of their image tied to retail and commercial banking operations with many branch offices (probably eliminate, we said above). This eliminated the great fiduciary banks such as State Street Corp. (NYSE: STT) and Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (NYSE: BK), even though they certainly would be considered among the safest banks. It also eliminated the bank holding companies with no retail banking operations, such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS).

24/7 Wall St. took a “Made in America” approach as well, and we screened out U.S. banking outfits that are actually subsidiaries of foreign banks. We also screened out the banks that were still in the process of making large, game-changing or transformative acquisitions, which are too difficult to evaluate in order to avoid absorbing any hidden or unknown risks.

With credit ratings becoming a risk again after a U.K. sovereign downgrade, and on the heels of the fiscal cliff and spending sequestration, all these banks also had to be considered investment grade by the major credit ratings agencies. A minimum hurdle of a 7.0% return on equity had to be seen, and we included the return on assets in this analysis as well. These safest banks had to have a minimum divided yield of 2.0% for their common stockholders, as proof that management believes that it can continue returning capital to shareholders through good and bad times, while still maintaining normal operations.

We screened out the nondiversified banks to avoid too many fluctuations throughout the business cycles. For an investment angle, we also gave preference to the banks where Wall St. analysts have a consensus price target above the current share price, indicating that some underlying value potentially remains. If a bank’s common stock was less than $10.00 per share, it had to have its metrics well above average among the largest banks.

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While Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) was the best performing of the 30 Dow Jones Industrial Average stocks in 2012, it and the money-center banking giant Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) actually do not qualify to be in the safest banks in America, even though the reality is that these banks are almost certain to survive another recession. The Federal Reserve deems them to still be problem banks, and they have so far not been freed up to raise their dividends or to increase share buybacks. That may change ahead, and the reality is that these banks are believed to be strong enough to weather most negative scenarios under the impending stress tests.

Finally, we eliminated banks that we did not feel would survive another recession. Consumers have to keep their money somewhere other than under their mattresses. Having an extremely safe bank to protect your hard-earned cash, nest-eggs and safety deposit boxes in hard times is much more important than how high of a rate depositors can get on certificates of deposit and in their checking and savings accounts. As far as quality is concerned, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) has large stakes in three of the seven safest banks.

In mid-2012, banking regulators proposed to incorporate Basel III capital changes for substantially all U.S. banking organizations. Our list of safest banks shows the Tier-1 ratio today as well as the company’s projected Tier-1 ratio under the proposed rules. This also helps to eliminate any problems over safety and vulnerability ahead. If Basel III is finally adopted as proposed, the threshold for the Tier 1 common equity ratio will be 7%, consisting of a minimum level plus a capital conservation buffer.

Based on the analysis, we anticipate that future lists of the safest banks in America may include 10 or even 12 banks, rather than seven, because many banks only missed one criteria yet exceeded other hurdles handily. We still are not evaluating the community or single-region banks due to size or single geography risks. That being said, many of those community banks have better ratios than any of the larger safest banks in America.

This is the 24/7 Wall St. list of the seven safest banks in America for 2013 to deposit money into, ranked in order of safety, size by assets, and reach.  Our rank is based on financial stability, size by assets, and by reach.

24/7 Wall St. follows Warren Buffett closely, and we also follow dividend investing closely. Every Buffett follower knows that the Oracle of Omaha is a huge fan of dividends as a way to create income and new capital off of the existing base for the Berkshire Hathaway empire. We wanted to see which of Buffett’s stocks had the highest dividend yields so that investors can decide if they want to perhaps cherry-pick from his holdings.

It is interesting that H. J. Heinz Co. (NYSE: HNZ) as the newest buyout offers up a 2.9% dividend yield. That is based on the new price rather than on the pre-merger price. That is also with shares at an all-time high.

ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) was a 24.1 million-share stake in the latest holdings, worth close to $1.4 billion based on today’s price. This is a decent size for a Buffett stake, but not an all-in bet. The dividend yield here is close to 4.5%.

Gannett Co. Inc. (NYSE: GCI) is a very small position at 1.74 million shares. While this was a static size, it is much lower than in years past. Investors may pan the world of “old media” names, but this stock recently hit a 52-week high. Its market cap of $4.6 billion is also a small stock for Buffett. What stands out is that 4% dividend yield offered by Gannett, and investors need to understand that this high dividend yield is with shares trading at highs going back almost five years.

We did not include the General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) yield of 3.2% due to the size of the stake being less than 600,000 shares. We noted before that the team’s stake here is so small that they should just unload the rest of it.

GlaxoSmithKline PLC (NYSE: GSK) is a relatively small stake at 1.51 million ADRs, but its dividend screens out at close to 6%. Another ADR that is a larger stake is Sanofi S.A. (NYSE: SNY) at 4.06 million shares, and its dividend yield screens out at about 3.5%.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) is one of those more than 3% yields that is hard to get excited about for Buffett trackers. It is not that the stock is challenging all-time highs, nor that the manufacturing woes have been a thorn here. What puts Buffett trackers off is that Berkshire Hathaway has trimmed this stake down to about 327,000 shares after having held a massive stake in prior years.

Kraft Foods Group Inc. (NASDAQ: KRFT) is a high-yield position, but Buffett seems to be more focused on the Mondelez International Inc. (NASDAQ: MDLZ) stake as a new position. Kraft is now only 1.67 million shares, and Mondelez is 12.84 million shares. The difference is that the legacy Kraft pays a dividend of about 4.2%, versus only about 1.9% from Mondelez.

Unfortunately, some of the companies mentioned here were also among the stocks that we think Mr. Buffett needs to sell soon.

There are many runner-ups here for the 3% dividends. Buffett has owned some of these long enough that Berkshire Hathaway has a yield of 3% even if new investors based on today’s prices will get a tad less. These “almost 3% yields” are as follows:

• The Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) at 2.7%
• M&T Bank Corp. (NYSE: MTB) at 2.6%
• Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG) at 2.9%
• Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) is a mega-Buffett stake (more than $16 billion today) with a yield of about 2.8%.