IRAs Should Love Procter & Gamble

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Procter & Gamble (PG) has been around for over 175 years. The stock is a huge conglomerate and, as such, can be expected to pretty well track the overall market.

In fact, the total annual return of this stock and the overall market are almost exactly the same 13%+ over the past five years.

Even during the past six months, as this graph from Barchart shows, the stock and the market as measured by the Value Line Index have tracked each other pretty closely. The market was down about 3% for the period while the stock was down about 1%:

Procter & Gamble, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the manufacture and sale of a range of branded consumer packaged goods. The company operates in five segments: Beauty, Grooming, Health Care, Fabric Care and Home Care, and Baby Care and Family Care.

The company markets its products through mass merchandisers, grocery stores, membership club stores, drug stores, high-frequency stores, department stores, perfumeries, pharmacies, salons, and e-commerce in approximately 180 countries worldwide. The Procter & Gamble Company was founded in 1837 and is based in Cincinnati. (Yahoo Finance profile)

Factors to consider:

Technical factors provided by Barchart:

The stock scores a 64% Barchart technical buy signal and also a Trend Spotter buy signal. It trades above its 20-, 50- and 100-day moving averages. The price hit 12 new highs and was up 3.60% in the last month and is up 5.86% for the one-year period.

The price is only 1.82% off its high during the past year. The Relative Strength Index is above 50% at 63.30% and Barchart computes a technical support level at 66.39. It recently traded at $66.71, which is above its 50-day moving average of $63.84.

Fundamental factors:

Wall Street brokerage firms have long recommended PG for long-term conservative investors, and 15 brokerage houses have assigned 25 analysts to run the numbers. Analysts project revenue will grow by 0.50% this year and another 3% next year. Earnings are estimated to increase by 0.30% this year, an additional 8.2% next year and continue to increase by an annual rate of 8.28% over the next five years.

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