We have compiled Thomson Reuters estimates, when the earnings are due, and what the share pricing has been on each, and added in additional color if applicable.  There are a few additional themes we would watch: dividend coverage, how a strong dollar is impacting earnings and competitiveness, making earnings on cost monitoring while revenues may be soft, and exposure to Europe.

TUESDAY

E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. (NYSE: DD), or just DuPont, reports on Tuesday morning.  The chemicals giant is expected to have earnings of $0.33 EPS and $8.53 billion in revenues. Shares are just under $50.00 and the 52-week range is $37.10 to $57.00.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) is due Tuesday morning.  The drug, medical products, and consumer products giant is expected to report earnings of $1.10 EPS and $16.28 billion in sales.  With shares close to $65.00, the 52-week range is $57.50 to $68.05.

McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE: MCD) is due to report on Tuesday morning and estimates for the fast food giant are $1.29 EPS and $6.80 billion in sales.  Shares are within yet another hair of another all-time high and it has recently talked up sales and has already raised its dividend.

Travelers Cos. Inc. (NYSE: TRV), the most forgotten financial stock of the DJIA, is expected to report earnings of $1.52 EPS and $5.47 billion in sales.  With shares above $61.00, the 52-week trading range is $45.97 to $64.17.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) is due to lead of the telecom sector on Tuesday morning and earnings are expected to be $0.53 EPS on $28.4 billion in revenues.  With shares around $39.00, the 52-week range is $32.28 to $40.48.

WEDNESDAY

Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) is due Wednesday morning and the aerospace and defense giant is expected to report $1.00 EPS and $19.4 billion in revenues. With shares around $75.50, the 52-week range is $56.01 to $80.65.

United Technologies Corporation (NYSE: UTX) may be the conglomerate with the most upside in 2012 according to analysts.  The earnings are due Wednesday morning and the consensus targets are $1.46 EPS and $15.07 billion in revenues.  With shares under $77.00, the 52-week range is $66.87 to $91.83 and the consensus price target is $89.44.

Read Also: Why The DJIA Could Peak Up 12% at 13,678 in 2012

THURSDAY

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is due on Thursday morning and estimates are $0.45 EPS and $31.94 billion in sales.  Shares are back above $30 around $30.40 and the 52-week range is $27.20 to $31.94.

Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) is expected to report Thursday morning and estimates are $1.73 EPS and $16.04 billion in sales.  With shares back above $105.00, the 52-week range is $67.54 to $116.55 and the consensus price target is now $115.28.

FRIDAY

Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) is due with earnings Friday morning and the oil giant’s consensus estimates are $2.93 EPS and $71.08 billion in sales.  With shares around $106.40, the 52-week range is $86.68 to $110.99 and the consensus price target is $124.95.  Keep in mind that Chevron is the second highest weighting in the DJIA due to its high share price.

Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG) is due to post the consumer product giant earnings report Friday morning.  The consensus estimates are $1.08 EPS and $22.2 billion in sales.  Shares are trading around $66.10 and the 52-week range is $57.56 to $67.72 and the consensus target is $72.37.

We will be releasing more detailed previews the day ahead of each DJIA earnings report this coming week.  Additional data will be around forward earnings estimates for guidance, what the implied valuations are, color on what to look for in addition to earnings, as well as opinions from analysts, what the charts are showing, and what the options traders are expecting for a price move.

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GE continues to improve its internal workings and continues to improve its customer credit metrics in the GE Capital operations faster than most expected.  The company’s dividend hike came sooner than expected and this conglomerate is returning to normal sooner than expected even if the total portfolio changes is going to look like a decline in revenues on the surface.  While United Tech might have been the cheapest conglomerate, it was still General Electric which we included in the 24/7 Wall St. 2012 Model Dividend Portfolio.

GE was also listed as one of Jim Cramer’s 4 Favorite DJIA Stocks For 2012.

After a 0.7% rise on Thursday to $19.15, GE shares are up 6.9% year to date.  What is more impressive is that after you adjust for the dividend payment the stock of the conglomerate is up a massive 21.5% from the end of November and shares are up a massive 31.5% if you were lucky enough to buy shares on the day after Thanksgiving and hold them.

The manner in which GE is acting is that it wants to go well back over $20.00.  That is what its chart action is indicating at any rate.  At some point, it will take more continued good news of some sort from the company to make that sustainable.

In case GE manages to disappoint the street, the 50-day moving average is $16.89 and the 200-day moving average is $17.32.  The first support level would come in around $18.00 if any serious disappointment comes up and then down in the $17.60 area if the news is somehow much worse than investors are expecting.  Shares are now back up at levels not seen since last July and the historic 1-year chart shows that all sorts of resistance will come back into play in the $20.10 to $20.30 areas.

Thomson Reuters has a consensus (mean) price target objective of $21.21.

JON C. OGG

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.

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JON C. OGG

It turns out that many stocks with high dividend yields are now more attractive than sovereign debt in the U.S. and abroad. Part of the allure, besides income or reinvestment, is that dividend stocks often hold up better than other investments during jittery markets. It is hard to imagine, but the high-yield utility sector was one of the top performers of the S&P in 2011. In some cases, half of an investor’s total return through time may come from dividends. Warren Buffett generally picks dividend-paying companies for Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) after following some of the principles of Benjamin Graham.

The 24/7 Wall St. 2012 Model Dividend Portfolio includes the following stocks: American Electric Power Co., Inc. (NYSE: AEP); American Water Works Company, Inc. (NYSE: AWK); AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T); General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE); Government Properties Income Trust (NYSE: GOV); Kimberly-Clark Corporation (NYSE: KMB); Senior Housing Properties Trust (NYSE: SNH); and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT).

While exchange-traded products have been avoided in the past, recent trends merit a look at the open-end or closed-end mutual funds and ETF products as follows: SPDR Barclays Capital High Yield Bond (NYSE: JNK); JPMorgan Alerian MLP Index ETN (NYSE: AMJ); ALPS Alerian MLP ETF (NYSE: AMLP); and PowerShares Financial Preferred (NYSE: PGF).

Lastly, there have been some exits due to upside price performance: Altria Group Inc. (NYSE: MO); Digital Realty Trust Inc. (NYSE: DLR); Enterprise Products Partners LP (NYSE: EPD); and Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP (NYSE: KMP).

We have described the features and outlook for each component of our Model Dividend Portfolio.

Read Also: 5 Most Undervalued DJIA Stocks

Analysts according to Thomson Reuters have a consensus price target objective of $88.79 over the next year versus a current share price of $74.90. That gives an implied upside of about 18.5% and its 2.6% dividend yield is likely to be raised sometime around this coming summer if all goes well.

One key issue is that much is price-based because United Tech is also down from its 52-week high the most of the three DJIA conglomerates with a drop of more than 18% from its 52-week high.  The market cap of $68 billion keeps United from being in the mega-cap or super-cap group and not that much higher than the $58 billion worth of 3M and only one-third of GE’s market cap.

There is a wild card here, a very big wild card… The Goodrich Corporation (NYSE: GR) acquisition which has been a huge overhang. That is the trick, and a clean deal will allow it to soar but a troubled deal could act as as a continued thorn in its side.

Read Also: DJIA Stocks Could Rise 12% (or 15%) In 2012

With a 52-week trading range of $66.87 to $91.83, United Tech does not even to reach a 52-week high to reach the consensus analyst price target.

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JON C. OGG

Now we have a Stern Agee report after the dividend was raised to $0.17 from $0.15 per quarter.  Stern Agee’s Ben Elias noted that the dividend hike was expected and is now looking for what else lies ahead.  First and foremost, the annual meeting outlook for 2012 is taking place this week (Dec. 13) and may be another catalyst.

The report notes, “After the GE Capital investor meeting there is a higher level of confidence that GE Capital has the financial strength, liquidity and reserves to pay the dividend to the parent, but little faith in the regulator’s ability to be able to familiarize themselves with GE Capital’s operations and approve the dividend payment before Year-End 2012.”

The firm noted that a higher dividend contribution could come from greater confidence in the industrial businesses, higher profitability, lower delinquencies and adequate provisions for losses as well as secured funding at GE Capital for 2012.

If the historic reversion comes and the dividend trends to 2.5% to 3.0% (Currently more than 3.5%) then there could be significant upside to the current share price.

Stern Agee’s rating is “BUY” and its price target objective is $22.75; Thomson Reuters still has a price target of only about $20.98 on the stock.  At $16.40 after more than a 2% drop today, GE’s consensus price target implies upside of about 28% (plus that near-4% new dividend yield).  If Stern Agee’s call is correct then there is more than 40% upside if you combine the yield and the price target.

If you want to receive the full 24/7 Wall St. 2012 Model Dividend Portfolio you can sign up in the email submission below.  Each morning we send our free email list subscribers a snapshot of the key feature stories, the top daily analyst upgrades and downgrades, previews for key events, and many other aspects governing your finances.

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GE raised its quarterly payout by $0.02 to $0.17 per quarter as the company tries to move back towards its old payout rate.  This dividend will not come until 2012 and is payable on January 25, 2012 to shareholders of record as of December 27, 2011.  The stock’s ex-dividend date is December 22, 2011.

Again, this is even sooner than we expected and it was not expected by many in the market.  GE shares were already yielding 3.7% as is.  Now the stock is up 2.9% at $16.78 and the new dividend yield will be just over 4% now.

Jeff Immelt noted that GE has redeemed the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) preferred shares and is redeploying its NBC Universal capital into other growth areas.  It was just this week that the company’s GE Capital forecast that its metrics have continued to improve and that it would start paying a dividend back to the parent company as soon as it was cleared to do so.  Be advised that this is the fourth dividend hike in two years since GE had to cut its payout to more easily get through the recession.

Immelt also noted, “We believe that the GE business model will continue to deliver strong earnings and cash flow growth going forward.” 

As far as what this translates to based upon the Thomson Reuters consensus estimate of $1.56 EPS for 2012, the dividend payout ratio is about 43.5% of expected earnings per share.  As far as the 2011 consensus of $1.37 EPS, the payout ratio is far higher at nearly 50%.

If you want to receive the full 24/7 Wall St. 2012 Model Dividend Portfolio you can sign up in the email submission below.  Each morning we send our free email list subscribers a snapshot of the key feature stories, the top daily analyst upgrades and downgrades, previews for key events, and many other aspects governing your finances.

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Bernstein raised General Electric Co. to ‘Outperform’ from a less optimistic ‘Market Perform’ rating.  The old price target was $19.00, still indicating about 16% upside as of yesterdays close.  The new target has been raised to $21.00 per share.  This puts the new upside of about 28.5%.

If you include General Electric’s 3.7% dividend, the new call implies more than 30% upside.  For a comparison, the consensus price target objective before adjusting for this upgrade was $20.93 for General Electric.

The research note is in agreement with us over one thing for sure: a higher dividend for 2012.  Their call is that the dividend could rise to 4% in 2012 after a review from the Fed. Part of the reason is obvious in stronger core metrics, but Bernstein also cited free cash flow and a likely stronger earnings power in key businesses.

GE’s value has been hard to argue against as far as “Value Stocks” are concerned at under 12-times earnings and under 11-times next year’s earnings.  Shares are up 2.3% at $16.71 on normal trading volume today.

JON C. OGG

The report cited a recent gain of 36% in earnings, with higher operating income across all the business segments except in the finance and financial products operations. The sectors which were noted as performing well were Insurance, Railroad, Utilities and Energy, Manufacturing, Service and Retail.

The growth engine was labeled as the property and casualty insurance businesses with a contribution of approximately 40% of its 2010 operating income.  Another favorable note for the segment was that it maintains capital strength at exceptionally high levels.

So, what is worth?  Apparently it is worth $91.00 per share and Zacks has an “Outperform” rating on Mr. Buffett’s company.  What is interesting is that this $91.00 figure is a 6-month target rather than a one-year price target.  What does this translate to for valuation? The projection is roughly 13.2-times Zacks’ earnings estimate for 2011 and it implies a total return of about 17% in that period.

We would note that there may be one issue with this report, and that is that Warren Buffett himself has always said to watch the firm’s stated book value per share.  The reason behind that is that he admitted that Team Buffett & Munger could effectively make earnings almost anything they wanted to in any single quarter because of its ability to lock-in gains or losses from its vast investment portfolio or by incurring or pushing out charges on assets. Merger expenses could also alter those quarterly figures.

Mr. Buffett made some significant changes to his investment holdings this last quarter, and here were his full equity holdings.

Shares closed Thursday at $77.81 and the 52-week range is $65.35 to $87.65, so if Zacks is right then Berkshire Hathaway is heading for a new year high.

JON C. OGG

If you add up the past 12 SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA) dividend payments, the DJIA yield has been almost 2.5% over the last year. The good news is that the yield is already higher if you include the hikes that are likely to be announced. The price of the DJIA today should offer what will be closer to a 3% dividend yield in 2012.

The list of the 30 DJIA components is very long, but we have reviewed each and all of the following: Alcoa (NYSE: AA), American Express (NYSE: AXP), AT&T (NYSE: T), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), Boeing (NYSE: BA), Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT), Chevron (NYSE: CVX), Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), DuPont (NYSE: DD), Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM), General Electric (NYSE: GE), Home Depot (NYSE: HD), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM), Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT), McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD), 3M (NYSE: MMM), Merck & Company (NYSE: MRK), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), Travelers Companies (NYSE: TRV), United Technologies (NYSE: UTX), Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ), Walmart Stores (NYSE: WMT) and finally Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS).

We have broken out each DJIA component to review the history and expected dividend action individually. While this is a no short read, dividend and income investors better pay close attention here. Value investors should pay attention as well. It is these DJIA components that are often considered as the prize of the sector and many peers are facing the same trends today and tomorrow. Our review focuses on when the last hikes have been seen, when the next dividend hike will come, and what the price and implied upside to the Thomson Reuters consensus price target offers. We also even have shown an expected income payout ratio on each if applicable to further show which companies can boost their payouts ahead.

Alcoa is still hanging its hat on the notion that the aluminum market will double by 2020, so we have to at some point expect the DJIA component to boost its dividends again in the years ahead. Still, the company is trying to accumulate more liquidity and the current climate is a choppy one for metals players. The dividend has been stuck at $0.03 since the first of 2009 and it was $0.17 per quarter before then. Any hikes might only be nominal until the business climate becomes a bit more steady and predictable. The 1.1% is very unimpressive for a DJIA component and we have no great dividend ambitions in the near-term for Alcoa, even if only 10% to 15% of expected 2012 income is slated for payouts. At $10.35, the consensus price target of about $13.25 is well under the 52-week high of $18.47.

American Express has had its dividend steady at $0.18 per quarter since its January 2008 payment and the current yield is only 1.4%. The company’s credit metrics keep improving and its payout is not quite 19% of expected earnings next year. Still, this is a financial stock and it is hard to a financial stock to boost dividends right now. It has no branch bank operations but the climate remains tenuous. At $49.70, the consensus price target is around $55.75 if you trust price targets on financial firms.

AT&T has had four quarters in a row of $0.43 and it has a history of raising its dividend each year. The question that hangs over it is the regulatory block over the T-Mobile buyout and the huge penalty that AT&T will ultimately have to pay out of it cannot clear regulatory hurdles. This is one of the dividend stars with a 5.8% yield but it also pays out more than 70% of its expected income. Another hike is possible, but our take is that the dividend yields are now so high that telecom giants will only ratchet them up slightly. At $29.20, the consensus price target is $31.90.