Dow Stocks -- Crossing Over to 'Buy'

(TheStreet.com, starting yesterday and ending Friday, is reviewing all 30 Dow stocks after the index fell 3.1% last month, the steepest drop since February 2009. Six Dow stocks will be featured each day.)

BOSTON (TheStreet) -- Dow stocks represent the largest and most solid companies in the U.S. Yesterday's review of the six lowest-rated Dow stocks showed that even those in a funk -- Alcoa(AA), General Electric(GE) and Bank of America(BAC) -- have great staying power.

Selecting the top Dow stocks is no easy task. This week, TheStreet.com is ranking the Dow components based on our proprietary quantitative model, which takes into account financial strength, volatility, growth potential, performance and dividends, to project those most likely to fare well in the coming year.

Today's batch of Dow stocks finally features some "buy"-rated companies. This group starts to get into the strong heart of the Dow -- huge companies with strong financials and good profitability with little price volatility.

#24. ExxonMobil(XOM)

P/E: 16.4 (Integrated Oil and Gas Average: 21.4)

Debt/Capital: 7.4% (Integrated Oil and Gas Average: 29.9%)

5-Year Growth Rate: 5% (Integrated Oil and Gas Average: 21.6%)

Exxon experienced phenomenal revenue growth amid skyrocketing oil prices in 2007 and 2008. Since the financial meltdown, oil prices have crashed to a more reasonable level, and Exxon has suffered as a result. Not to say that the company is struggling, but greatly reduced prices have led to falling revenue and profit. Such deterioration hurt the growth score generated by the model, which was a major weight on the rating as a whole.

The performance of Exxon's stock, also a concern for the model, is linked to the drop in oil prices. Over the past 52 weeks, Exxon has fallen 16%. Anticipated low growth can be easily seen in the company's PEG ratio, which stands at an extremely high 2.7, suggesting low growth compared to the current valuation. Exxon's dividend yield of 2.6% is strong, but is slightly lower than other industry competitors, which have yields closer to 4%. Bolstering the company are strong financials and a fairly stable price over the past few months, which has improved the volatility score. Exxon has a grade of C-plus and is rated as a high "hold."