In a close examination of their stocks to buy, Merrill Lynch analysts sought to (1) point out possible product launches and (2) highlight important milestones, including potential threats for the companies in their coverage universe. The firm also summarized quarterly growth and margin trends and provided a valuation snapshot for each company. Here are the stocks to buy from Merrill Lynch.

AbbVie Inc. (NYSE: ABBV) seems to be on the radar at most major Wall Street firms, despite the fact that 50% of all revenues are from one drug (Humira). Merrill Lynch is bullish on the stock given its attractive valuation, above-average dividend yield, and the potential for the pipeline to deliver a blockbuster hepatitis C (HCV) franchise over the medium term. Their price target for the stock is $49. The Thomson/First Call consensus target is $45.50. Investors are paid a 3.60% dividend.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE: BMY) is a stock to buy. Merrill Lynch analysts do have some concern over the pipeline of future products. They believe that pipeline setbacks could pressure the stock, but a solid dividend yield should limit downside risk. The Merrill Lynch price objective for the stock is $45. The consensus target is much lower at $38. Investors receive a 3.50% dividend.

Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE: LLY) is considered a “sum-of-the parts” stock to buy. Continued strong cash flow generation, a focus on shareholder return through a stable dividend, expense control and potential for positive pipeline news could improve sentiment over time and lead to multiple expansion. The Merrill Lynch price target is $65. The consensus is, again, much lower at $57. Shareholders are paid a 3.60% dividend.

Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE: MRK) is a stock to buy with characteristics similar to the Eli Lilly story. Merrill Lynch analysts are looking for continued strong cash flow generation, focus on shareholder return through a stable dividend (with potential for growth) and share buybacks, and potential for positive pipeline news could improve sentiment over time and lead to multiple expansion. The Merrill Lynch price target for the stock is $53, while the consensus is at $51. Investors are paid a 3.80% dividend.

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) rounds out the list of large cap stocks to buy. With a solid current revenue base and a growing pipeline, Pfizer may have the most potential of the stocks to buy. The Merrill Lynch price target is $33. The consensus is $32. Shareholder are paid a 3.30% dividend.

While the Merrill Lynch report did not assess macro issues, which can play an important role in driving stock performance, it was very helpful for company-specific analysis. Combining strong growth potential with consistent and possibly rising dividends, make large cap pharmaceutical stocks a good bet for any portfolio.

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.

The chairman of the company’s compensation committee, James McNerney, CEO of Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA), was reported by Bloomberg to be unhappy with McDonald after P&G was forced to cut its forecast three times in a year. The irony of that is best left to another day.

P&G announced a layoff of 5,700 employees last year, as well as other cost cutting measures totalling some $10 billion by 2016 to help offset rising commodity costs. That has certainly helped the company’s bottom line, but it’s nothing more than a near-term fix.

McDonald may also get a shareholder challenge led by activist investor William Ackman of Pershing Square Capital Management. Ackman’s hedge fund owns about 1% of P&G’s stock, and while he’s currently busy with Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE: HLF) and J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP), if he smells blood in the water here, McDonald could face a tough opponent. Ackman probably thinks he waited too long for results from his hand-picked CEO for Penney’s and is not likely to make that mistake again.

When the notion of replacing McDonald came up last year, many thought that it was premature. After all he’d been at the head of P&G for only about three years and those were the toughest years for the U.S. economy since the Great Depression. But as the quarters roll along and P&G’s performance doesn’t improve, McDonald’s tenure in the corner office gets shakier.

Shares of P&G hit a bottom of around $45 in May of 2009 and have since climbed to an all-time high of more than $82. But growth was pretty flat for the two year to January of 2013, when they turned sharply higher as commodity prices fell and the company’s cost reduction program showed some results. Neither force, however, demonstrates much of a strategic vision.

P&G’s shares are down about 4.8% in mid-afternoon trading today, at $78.05 in a 52-week range of $59.07 to $82.54.

We wanted to take a look at some of the bright spots in the earnings season so far, and these include Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC), Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Peabody Energy Corp. (NYSE: BTU).

Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), the Wintel duo, were not expected to show much in the first quarter. Fourth-quarter PC shipments were down and not expected to improve, while Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system was generating some buzz, but not much in the way of sales. The two companies offered surprising, if not exciting results. Both companies’ share prices have remained above their pre-release levels even though both remain well within their 52-week ranges. One possible note of caution going forward is that the channels may be stuffed with product that is not moving and we won’t know that until next earnings season.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) seems to post a new 52-week high every day. Perhaps there is increasing optimism that the company will buy out Verizon Wireless partner Vodafone Group PLC (NASDAQ: VOD). That buyout would be immediately accretive to revenue and profit, but leave Verizon with a punishing debt load. This may be one of those situations where everything is fine until it’s not.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), like Verizon, seems to make a new high every day. The company appears to have fixed its quality control issues and many of its most important lines of business are growing again. As we noted last week, we expect the 2.9% dividend yield to get a boost any day now.

Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) absolutely shattered expectations and the shares have been on a tear for the last couple of days, posting another 52-week high today of just under $220. Subscriber numbers were up and much of the credit is going to the company’s original production of “House of Cards.” Original programming is expensive and eats into the bottom line, but given the demands for licensing content from other media houses, Netflix’s original programming should carry it to more growth going forward.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) earnings beat estimates and were just a bit shy on the top line. Paid clicks were up 20%, but the amount the company received for each click fell by 4%. That’s still a net positive, however, and the plain fact is that web searching is massive, and Google simply owns search in much of the world. That’s not likely to change anytime — sooner or later.

Peabody Energy Co. (NYSE: BTU) did not post a profit in the first quarter but its loss was only a third as large at analysts had expected. Peabody and Arch Coal Inc. (NYSE: ACI), which reported in-line results this morning, both expect sales to improve as natural gas prices rise for the rest of this year. The entire coal mining sector could begin to see improvements based on these two miners’ results

We said at the beginning that we were going to cover bright spots so far this earnings season, but there is one storm cloud that deserves to be mentioned as well. As we’ve noted before, Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) may be very bad news not just for the mining and heavy equipment sector, but for the whole mining group. The big miners have been struggling with rising costs and surging stockpiles. It could be several quarters before the mining sector sorts itself out.

The 2013 primer for “Sell in May and Go Away!” will be more concise and quick-hit. More detailed and recent background data is available in links, for a broader, fresh reading on each point.

Maybe this really was supposed to be a “Sell in April” call as the markets have become choppy after huge gains. Investors have high profits that they can still lock in, but many investors still have managed to miss the bull market without making much in profits outside of their bond funds. Due to attempts to chase returns and to catch up on missing five years of retirement investing, the first quarter saw record inflows of capital into stock funds, if you measure the past decade or so. The fact that interest is being rekindled in stocks actually may lead to some stabilizing support in May, even if the economic data remains spotty to cautious.

Corporate earnings are coming out mixed. The overall focus of just earnings and guidance is positive on the bottom line, but revenue growth for the major companies remains stodgy and hard to find this year. Weak international markets and emerging markets are playing into that, as is the rising value of the U.S. dollar relative to other currencies.

Economic readings are showing only modest growth or contraction. If you have looked at the various purchasing managers’ index readings and the regional Federal Reserve and regional economic reports, the sentiment is either in the red, showing contraction, or growth that remains so low that it might as well be contraction.

Europe remains a serious point of weakness. Somehow the tiny banking island nation of Cyprus managed to dwarf the problems of Greece, Italy and elsewhere. Now we have France effectively in a recession again, and Germany’s reports are teetering back to recessionary levels. If these readings do not improve, then growth forecasts for later in 2013 will revert to recessionary projections. That is bad for exporters. The U.K. even lost another Triple-A rating.

China and emerging markets are less than robust. The recent International Monetary Fund and other international meetings point to emerging markets not being strong enough to support their internal growth projections. Growth in Brazil and Russia may be better than in India, but the whole BRIC complex is running below its capabilities. China has been called the growth engine of the world but it also is showing more manufacturing weakness as well.

Consumers are facing pressure. Weaker consumer sentiment has come after the start of higher taxes, but commodities may help stabilize the bleeding. Consumers have had to face higher payroll taxes and higher food prices. Overall inflation is tame. This is hurting sentiment and some spending measurements. The good news here is that lower oil prices will save consumers directly at the pump, which helps them have more spending money for restaurants, entertainment and other consumer spending issues. If oil prices remain low, this may be a stabilizing force against what would otherwise be a less than robust consumer. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT), Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) and even Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST) are all within 1% or so of multiyear highs in their share prices.

Broader economic barometer companies are faltering. Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) showed serious concerns about the year ahead for pre-infrastructure and mining outfits. The only saving graces were that investors already were figuring this into the share price and that the company will spend up to $1 billion to repurchase shares on the cheap. General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) managed to meet many expectations, but this one had run up and valuation met what is obviously going to be slower growth ahead for this economic bellwether as well.

Banking excitement has petered out. The post-earnings reaction to banks has not carried the 2012 excitement much further into 2013. It is getting harder to find the same enthusiasm around Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC) and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM). Even a discount to book value argument has not yet handily changed after about four years of recovery. Jamie Dimon even warned of more regulatory action ahead.

Technology is waning for the bulls. The good news is that Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) managed to hold up better than expected after earnings. The bad news is that Windows 8 has been partially blamed for a weak PC sales cycle that was the worst in years so far. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has lost its way and wrecked many investor fortunes who wanted to chase what was supposed to be a sure thing. International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) showed not just that it had little growth, but contraction. It simply may have run out of room to grow.

Metals have been serious points of weakness. Both have hit multiyear lows, but gold has wrecked more market-oriented finances and weak miner trends may imply that gold has not found a new investor base yet. Copper forecasts have come down due to the global demand and supply issues, and copper is arguably one of the biggest leading indicators of them all for emerging market and Chinese expansion. Elsewhere in metals, Alcoa Inc. (NYSE: AA) manages to keep selling a very slow and targeted turnaround story, and its shares are still lower than before its recent earnings and guidance.

A Recent History of “Sell in May and Go Away!”

At the end of April of 2012, there was a long road of political hate ahead of the U.S. presidential election, with an economy that was still sluggish but avoiding recession. The labor data was still choppy, with unemployment at about 8.2% due to lower labor force participation rates. Earnings growth was slowing then as well, and Europe was actually even more of a concern in 2012 than it is in 2013. The good news is that equity values were attractive and the FOMC still had more quantitative easing measures in its pocket at the time, with the pledge of maintaining an “exceptionally low rate policy” through the end of 2014.

The year 2011 felt close to a repeat of 2010, with the worries not just about the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain), but about the possibilities of a U.S. debt rating downgrade, which did ultimately come. Housing was still in the tank and employment was not yet in a full-blown recovery in America. While the end of April to the end of May did see a drop of 800 points in the DJIA, from almost 12,900 in late April and early May to just above 12,000 by late May and 11,900 by late June, it was late July and August that were the cruel months for the DJIA as companies began to suffer serious earnings concerns. The DJIA bottomed out just under 10,600 in August. By late October the market was back above 12,000 again.

But 2009 was a very different year because the market was recovering from the crash and stocks were still benefitting from that move. Summer of 2010 has a nasty start as investors worried about a double-dip recession, as housing prices continued to sink and unemployment was still a prime concern. We also faced that punishing event called the “Flash Crash.” Another big distraction was BP PLC (NYSE: BP), for its disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and America and the rest of the world was starting to consider some problems in nations called the PIIGS. The market peaked around 11,300 in late April and had sunk to a 9,800 by early May. Even around July 6, the DJIA was only near 10,200, and it was only back up to almost 10,500 after the end of August around Labor Day.

Monday’s report comes from Stephen Suttmeier on the technical side and Jue Xiong on the research side. Market breadth was referred to as stalled against the trading range highs up at 1,550 to 1,576 on the S&P 500 and noted that up-volume or weakened against down-volume. The firm noted that it would not take much to move its Volume Intensity Model to a negative reading, but there is also an underlying belief that the uptrend from November is intact as long as support at 1,525 holds.

Seven technically attractive mega-cap stocks were given to focus on now as a market theme. These currently have technically attractive chart patterns and tend to be considered underweighted by institutional investors relative to the S&P 500 benchmark weighting in the stock. Twenty-four names were highlighted in the report, but the seven mega-cap stocks the firm believes should be focused on now are McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD), 3M Co. (NYSE: MMM), Public Storage (NYSE: PSA), Simon Property Group Inc. (NYSE: SPG), AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and Valero Energy Corp. (NYSE: VLO). Note that Valero is the only one mentioned that does not carry a high dividend yield.

Investors who have wondered about gold might want to pay attention as well. Merrill Lynch said that the breakdown for 10-year Treasury yields imply relative underperformance for the financial stocks, while they imply outperformance from REITs, telecoms and utilities. Gold and silver are called near support with net large speculator positions in the contrarian buy zone, but of the two it is gold that has the better chart pattern. Gold support was put at $1,500 and silver at $26 to $27 per ounce.

We evaluated many key market and economic issues for this April bull market road map. Companies raising dividends, the lists of stocks to buy and stocks to sell, the top merger trends, activist investors, gold and oil, tax issues, quantitative easing, the best bank stocks to buy, the earnings season on the way and many more key issues were considered.

In case you missed the last trading day of the quarter, here is the closing bell report for March 28. There are generally two sides of a story, and so it is with the bullish case for stocks. It is interesting that some of the financial media already has started discussing whether investors should take the “sell in May and go away” strategy in 2013 when April’s trends are not even set or determined. We wanted to review a few key statistics so far year-to-date (YTD), now that the first quarter has officially ended.

• After a 52-point gain to 14,578.54, the DJIA is up 11.2% YTD.
• After a six-point gain to 1,569.19, the S&P 500 Index is up 10.0% YTD.
• Gold ended up 1% in March at $1,596, but is down about 5% YTD.
• The 30-year Treasury yield was 2.95% at the end of 2012 and closed at 3.10% at the end of the first quarter.
• Risk-On: The S&P Speculative Composite Spread (junk bonds over Treasuries) was about 566 basis points at the end of 2012, but was down to 509 basis points at the end of March.

We have indicated how and why 10 big stocks will lead the charge to take the S&P 500 to new all-time highs with the likes of General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE), Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) and Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG). What is so interesting is that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has fallen by 16% year-to-date and is currently the largest market cap of all stocks. Imagine how well the market would be if it actually was participating in the rally.

Watch for dividend news. International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) should be just one of the five big cap dividend hikes we expect in April, and watch for more share buyback news from the company as well. Also on the dividend and tax front, UBS gave a list of closed-end funds that are tax-free municipal bond funds.

The Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) woes may not be fully behind it, but the 787 Dreamliner tests are being expanded, and by the end of April the market should have a very clear picture about the battery situation on the new planes. The stock is challenging 52-week highs, but there is another $14 or so of upside before the stock chart is back at all-time highs.

Biogen Idec Inc. (NASDAQ: BIIB) is leading the biotech wave to all-time highs on the heels of a new FDA approval for yet another solid multiple sclerosis drug. Analysts are going to have play catch up or they will be forced to downgrade the stock on valuation. This stock hit new all-time highs in both of the final two trading days of March. A group called PropThink has offered up a list of its favorite biotech ideas to buy, and we would note that most of the big biotechs are at or close to all-time highs.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) is going to be one to watch. The short interest has risen sharply, likely on the growing pressure that Vodafone Group PLC (NASDAQ: VOD) wants to do something with its 45% stake in Verizon Wireless.

Here is a list of stocks to buy from the Merrill Lynch core portfolio holdings. Another very important list of stocks is the Deutsche Bank A.G. (NYSE: DB) list of 20 continued winning stock picks for the secular bull market. Secular bull market? That means very long term.

If you think that quantitative easing is about to end and that interest rates are due to scream higher, the speech from Fed President Evans shows internal support for keeping the genie in the bottle for well through the end of 2013 and perhaps much longer.

One thing to watch is a growing bubble in dividend stocks. It seems that some of these juicy dividend yields are getting a bit overbought as short sellers are really going on the offensive here against these high-quality high-yield dividend stocks. The biggest bubble looks to be forming in American Electric Power Co. (NYSE: AEP), unless it raises its payout again.

Japan remains key to the quantitative easing measures. If you want to know if all of that quantitative easing effort in Japan really will get rid of all the historic 20-plus year trend of stagflation and no growth, all you have to do is watch the WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity (NYSEMKT: DXJ). This tracks Japanese stocks but eliminates the yen-weakening risk. That exchange traded fund is up a sharp 17.1% year-to-date,while its unhedged counterpart is up 10.7% year-to-date.

Also, watch out for the trends following activist investors and mergers. The Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) merger bidding war against (or with) Michael Dell is just one small tip of this activist investor iceberg. We have warned of an activist investor bubble influencing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of companies. This may keep taking shape throughout April, May and as long as the bull market keeps supporting attacks on management to milk out slightly better returns. Merrill Lynch also gave a list of the next leveraged buyout candidates of stocks to buy.

And there is just so much more to consider.

Short interest in General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) rose 9.7% to 86.94 million shares. About 0.8% of GE’s float is now short.

Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) saw short interest fall by 3.4% to 326.65 million shares, or about 8.7% of the company’s total float.

Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) short interest fell 3.4% to 155.76 million shares, which represents 1.5% of the company’s float.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) saw a 0.4% drop in short interest to 60.96 million shares, which is about 2.1% of the total float.

Alpha Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE: ANR) showed a drop of 11.5% in short interest to 28.24 million shares, or about 13% of Alpha’s float.

McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD) showed a drop of 4.9% in short interest to 13.49 million shares, about 1.3% of the company’s float.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) saw a short interest rise by 5.5% to 20.5 million shares, or 2.2% of the company’s float.

BlackBerry (NASDAQ: BBRY) saw short interest rise by 5.3% to 155.01 million shares, or 31.4% of the total float. Short interest continues to be reported under the company’s previous name, Research in Motion, but the stock symbol has been changed to BBRY.

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) posted a 10.2% rise in short interest, to 107.82 million shares. That is about 1.4% of Microsoft’s float.

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) short interest rose by 32.8% to 38.47 million shares, or about 2.6% of the company’s float.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR) saw short interest increase by 10.3% to 33.99 million shares, or 27.9% of the company’s float.

Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) saw it short interest rise by 0.5% to 61.81 million shares, which was about 1.2% of the company’s float.

Short interest in Dell leaped more than 30% in the first two weeks of March. The stock has been trading above the buyout bid offered by Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners, so the short bet has been that there would be no substantive counter bid. However, at least two counter offers appear to be on the horizon, so it is not unlikely that the short positions will pull back.

Nearly a third of BlackBerry’s stock is now held short, and given company’s lackluster performance at last week’s U.S. launch of the Z10, it is not unreasonable to assume that the shorts will continue to flow in.

The 24/7 team felt the best measure to examine when determining the most overvalued stocks was taking the analysts consensus price targets and comparing that against where the stocks were actually trading. It is important to remember that the analysts’ consensus is based on the average of every analyst target combined, then divided by the number of analysts covering the stock. Coverage can vary from name to name, but the stocks in the DJIA are some of the most widely covered on Wall St.

Based on our research, here are the six most overvalued stocks in the DJIA:

Even though many analysts are jumping on the bandwagon, including CNBC regular Meredith Whitney, based on our criteria Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) makes the overvalued list. It pays a meager $0.04 per share dividend, and the Thomson/First Call estimate for this widely owned bank is $12.24. The stock closed yesterday at $12.78. Be advised that many analysts may just be playing catch up here. Meredith Whitney gave a $15 target near-term recently, and Dick Bove gave an ultimate recovery target of $30.

Despite a strong rally from the 52-week lows, former tech high flyer Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) has a seat at the most overvalued table. The Wall St. consensus price target for this silicon valley pioneer is $18.30. Closing yesterday at $22.92 puts the stock more than 25% higher than the analysts target. Hewlett-Packard does pay investors a 2.40% dividend.

Safe haven pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) has been on a roll since hitting a 52-week low last summer. It trades at 20.60 times earnings, an expensive multiple for a drug stock. The consensus price target is $78. Closing yesterday at $79.45, the stock now trades at a premium to consensus. Johnson & Johnson does pay investors a tidy 3.10% dividend.

Communications giant AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) also makes our overvalued list, despite paying investors a generous 5% dividend. Closing yesterday at $36.19 puts the stock near the consensus price target of $36.64. With wireline losses mounting and the constant margin pressure of the wireless business, AT&T may be a candidate for selling.

Spun off from Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) in 2002, insurance behemoth The Travelers Companies Inc. (NYSE: TRV) receives the overvalued grade. It closed right near a 52-week high at $83.84, and the consensus price target is $83.94. Investors are paid a 2.20% dividend. Travelers is also one of the DJIA stocks that much of the public forgets is even in there.

Last but not least, another DJIA communications giant, Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), rounds out our list of most overvalued stocks. With a $48.60 close, which is just shy of a 52-week high, Verizon trades above the consensus price target of $48.40. With a price to earnings of 159.61 and a solid dividend that has shrunk to 4.20% on stock appreciation, the company faces the same competition and issues as its rival AT&T.

We recently wrote about relative strength momentum investing. Relative strength is a “buy high, sell higher” strategy that assumes a stock with a rising price will continue its upward trajectory. That may be the case for the stocks that make our list. However, If the market happens to roll over and investors experience a much anticipated correction, the stocks on this list may be the first to head downhill.

The BRT said, “CEO economic expectations increased for the first time in four quarters. BRT CEOs also expect 2.1 percent growth for 2013, a slight increase from last quarter’s estimate of 2.0 percent.”

Jim McNerney, who is head of Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) and the chairman of Business Roundtable, said, “The relatively smaller improvement in the outlook for hiring, however, may reflect ongoing uncertainty and a wait-and-see attitude about the business climate in the United States, as agreement on the nation’s debt and budgetary issues remains elusive.”

Today’s survey release was up in the first quarter of 2013, to 81.0 from 65.6 in the fourth quarter of last year, and is back to the its highest level since the second quarter of 2012. The current index is at about its long-term average level of 79.2.

The BRT survey was completed between February 11 and March 1, 2013, and responses were received from 144 member CEOs for a 69% participation rate in the BRT survey. Here is a snapshot: