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The 10 Stocks That Will Drive a New S&P 500 All-Time High

24/7 Wall St. has been delivering readers many lists of stocks that offer upside as the S&P 500 Index and Dow Jones Industrial Average are within striking distance of all-time highs. The DJIA an antiquated index that the investing public still uses when talking about “The Stock Market.”

More experienced investors and traders tend to use the S&P 500 Index now to represent the broader stock market. After all, the S&P 500 is actually 500 stocks rather than just 30 stocks. The S&P 500 also includes sectors that the DJIA does not. By including transportation stocks, REITs, hospitals, utilities, specialty apparel and retail players and more, the S&P 500 Index just beats the DJIA out hands down.

24/7 Wall St. wanted to look at the ten stocks that would take the S&P 500 Index up to all-time highs. Investors will easily recognize these stocks, but they might not understand just how crucial these stocks are to driving the index higher. In a game of “Buy low and sell high” sometimes investors have to play the game of “Buy high, but sell much higher.”

So, you know that we have a serious issue with how the Dow Jones Industrial Average is calculated. That being said, the S&P 500 includes every single DJIA stock in it. If the DJIA is propelled higher, then the natural theory of relative gains is going to probably hold true. Two crucial DJIA stocks are also key drivers behind any rises in the level of the S&P 500 Index.

CNBC shows the intraday all-time high on the S&P 500 Index being 1,576.09 and the closing high as being 1,565.15. Let’s just say that these index levels are 1,576 intraday and 1,565 on a closing basis. Our own methodology got us up to DJIA 14,590 for 2013 at the start of the year.

The two biggest overlaps in DJIA and S&P 500 stocks are International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) and Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM). There are several other overlaps that exist here, but they are much more important to the S&P 500 Index than they are to the DJIA simply due to the nominal share prices. These are companies like General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE), Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), and AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T). That being said, there are many other S&P 500 Index components that should propel the index to new all-time highs and we have used many topics and points showing support for each.

We have listed these alphabetically to avoid signaling any unexpected outcomes.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is likely to be the top driver in a bull market that will help confirm all-time highs. The S&P 500 did well so far this year even with Apple doing so poorly. Imagine if it actually plays nice again. Apple precipitously fell from over $700 down to over $400, making what was The Darling of Wall Street out to be the Ugly Duckling of Wall Street. This one stock became the most valuable in the world by real market capitalization. What has received very little attention is that Apple has now bounced more than 10% off of its recent 52-week low of $419.00 to around $462. Apple is the biggest of all S&P 500 stocks with a weighting of over 3.1%. Imagine if Apple just rises back to $600 and still over $100 short of last year’s high? If the other S&P 500 stocks just remains in a static vacuum the 30% gain in Apple would theoretically lift the S&P 500 back to new record highs and Apple would again have what would be an unheard of weighting of over 4% weighting in the S&P 500 Index. Is $600 too high of an assumption for Apple stock? Wall Street analysts have a consensus price target of almost $620 on the stock. That cash arsenal of over $100 billion is another potential aid as well.

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is in a very strange place against rival Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ). The telecom and wireless giant has a lower DJIA weighting due to a lower share price (1.93% versus 2.59% in DJIA) but its S&P weighting is more important at 1.43% versus 1.0%. What is important to know here is that AT&T owns all of itself, while Verizon is only a majority stake-owner in it Verizon Wireless and Verizon’s partner Vodafone Group PLC (NASDAQ: VOD) is reportedly closer to unloading that stake. AT&T also wins in the dividend game with a 4.9% dividend. At $36.50, it is less than 1% away from its Thomson Reuters consensus price target but is still more than $2.00 shy of its 52-week high. This stock could rally another 6% and it would still offer a better dividend than Verizon.

Read Also: Deutsche Bank’s Top Picks to Lead the Secular Bull Market

Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) remains a tiny DJIA stock because of its $12.40 share price giving it the 29 out of 30 rank at only 0.66% weighting. Its weighting is still only 0.97% in the S&P 500 is still in the top 20 of all weighted stocks in the S&P 500. This was the top DJIA stock of 2012 with its price almost doubling, but Wall Street has been aggressively playing catch-up here. The consensus price target has now almost caught up to the share price. The stated book value per share is still over $20.00 per share. We won’t say that BofA has to go back to book value this year or even next year, but analysts are already getting aggressive here. Meredith Whitney said BofA will jump to $15 this year and Dick Bove sees BofA hitting $30 over the next two to three years.

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) is the listed as the tenth biggest upside potential of the S&P 500 Index even if we meant to rank these alphabetically. At $44.70, its 52-week high is $47.92. The bank has a new CEO and its dividend is an embarrassingly low 0.1% for it common holders. We do not rank it as high as Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) as far as asset quality, but the bank remains protected under the too big to fail umbrella. Its market cap is $136 billion and it ranks only one spot above BofA in the weighting of the S&P 500 as a result. We have a hard time trusting the book value per share, but that is still north of $60 per share. Thomson Reuters also has a $50.54 consensus analyst price target for Citi’s common stock. We won’t hold out for book value at all, but imagine if the management turnaround plan actually starts to recoup well enough that the Federal Reserve allows even something close to a normalized dividend next year. Suddenly, $50 doesn’t sound too unreasonable nor too unrealistic.

Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) may play second-fiddle to rival Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) in the DJIA due to the silly share price weighting of the S&P 500 Index, but it dominates the S&P 500 Index with a relative weighting being almost 2.9% versus 1.7%. In short, Chevron has to rally almost 50% more than Exxon to create the same move. Exxon Mobil’s management is doing everything it can to drive its stock higher. The company keeps buying back stock with billions and billions of dollars each year and it keeps aggressively raising its dividend. With its new targets set at aggressive levels. We are looking for both oil giants to announce yet again that they are raising dividends and have kept buying back stock. With Exxon Mobil at $88.75, its consensus price target is above (4 and that is above its 52-week high of $93.67. If Exxon starts to break out on the chart then Wall Street will say that its stock is worth over $100 per share. Another 12% gain from current levels alone would be a significant driver for the S&P 500 Index.

Read Also: Stocks That Will Take the DJIA to 15,000 

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) is puny weighting in the DJIA at about 1.25% of the DJIA. While its 1.75% weight in the S&P 500 Index doesn’t sound like that much more, GE is the third highest S&P 500 weighting. It is also the real barometer for conglomerates and if it rises it tends to lift the broader market and the key industrial stocks. After meeting with GE’s spokesperson just last week, 24/7 Wall St. believes that analysts are still giving the wrong multiple and valuation for GE. GE plans to keep making small divestitures and bolt-on acquisitions. More importantly, GE is planning to drive GE Capital down to 35% of the whole company rather than closer to 45% weighting today. That alone is going to command more of an industrial valuation rather than just a financial valuation. GE trades around $23.25 now and the Wall Street consensus has ratcheted higher to $25.33. If GE makes good on its efforts then it will probably rise even higher than the official consensus target. The highest Wall Street target price is $30.00 and we can easily see GE making a breakout run toward $28 for a gain of another 20%. GE out-yields other conglomerates with a 3.3% dividend yield, and that has only just of late been aided by the GE Capital unit paying a dividend to the parent company.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is another non-DJIA stock that may act to drive the S&P 500 to new highs. With shares at close to $810, this internet behemoth has a market capitalization rate of $266 billion. The S&P 500 only counts the free float here, so Sergey and Larry’s share dominance do not get to be counted here. With its growth opportunities, it is not that expensive at about 17.5-times expected 2013 earnings. Thomson Reuters has a consensus price of about $872 for the next year. We have seen two analysts refer to the Holy Grail of a $1,000 share price. We’ll see about the latter, but a move toward $900 is not exactly being so wildly bullish that we would be accused of being cheerleaders.

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) is a key driver of the DJIA and the S&P 500 Index. With a long-term goal of getting to $20.00 in earnings per share, the $210 or so price sounds high but is not high from a valuation metric. With Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) having Warren Buffett act like IBM’s favorite cheerleader (and a top shareholder) advertising that they would like to buy even more stock. investors need to recall that IBM is raising its dividend and raising its share buybacks. It remains a predictable slow moving tech stock that trends higher and higher. The Thomson Reuters consensus price of $225.75 is only about $10 above its 52-week high and all-time high. Big Blue might not be the sexiest tech stock out there, but it is a favorite stock to own.

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) remains the serial disappointment of all technology stocks. It is also a DJIA stock, and as Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer sell off stock the S&P 500 weighting will rise. Windows 8 has not been the greatest hit ever and the woes of the PC business taking the backseat to smartphones and tablet PCs is very well known. Even after rising close to $2.00 since the start of the year to $28.20, Microsoft remains the same as being a DJIA stock with the most upside to the price target of $32.91. Microsoft pays a high 3.3% dividend yield on its common stock and it remains a speculated company that could do a one-time special dividend again. Its market cap of $235 billion is slightly undercounted in the S&P 500 Index with Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer having so many shares. Still, Microsoft was at $32 in 2012 and its shares were close to $38 before the recession. A 1.52% or so weighting would do the S&P some serious boosting if its stock rose 10% (or even 20%). Microsoft also has a refresh cycle coming to its Xbox as well.

Read Also: Merrill Lynch Top Leveraged Buyout Stock Candidates

Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG) is a sleeper of a stock. At $76.80 it is only $1 short of a 52-week high but is still almost 5% under the Thomson Reuters consensus analyst price target of $80.22. Wall Street activist investors have been trying to force change here and the stock rose along with the market and the efforts. With a market cap of $209 billion, P&G has a 1.5% weight in the S&P 500 and comes in at number-9 of the 500 stocks by market value. The big draw is the 2.9% dividend yield that is going higher. We do not have any ambitions that P&G will move to $85 or $90 in the next few months, but cost management, activist investor compliance, managing waste, and opportunistic unit sales or acquisitions may drive the stock north of $80.

Will all of these rise as expected? Maybe. Maybe not. We have a slightly different outlook on some these names than Wall Street analysts. None of the individual upside projections here are too bullish compared to other stated upside targets. If the S&P 500 is going to rise and take over its new all-time high again, then it requires some macro-catalyst that lifts the bulk of the 500 stocks in unison or it requires a bunch of small catalysts in its key components.

Any and all of these catalysts and scenarios have what 24/7 Wall St. would consider at or close to 50/50 odds if the market just maintains a positive bias. If the market gets much more excited again, then these targets and assumptions are not difficult to see happening for all ten of these companies.

We predicted a top of 14,590 in the DJIA for 2013 at the start of the year. The market remains more than 100 points shy of that level. We have not officially raised our target for the DJIA this year other than saying we see upside and are expecting higher prices. If only half of the ten stocks we used here play out as expected we can get to DJIA 15,000 before year-end.

These are the ten stocks we expect to take the S&P 500 Index to new all-time highs. That closing price on a rounded basis is 1,565 and the 2013 high is only about 11 points south of that ahead of Easter. As a reminder, the DJIA already hit all-time highs in 2013.

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