The US stock market could be in for a riveting week amid multiple household names reporting.

Analysts at ANZ Group Holdings Ltd (ASX: ANZ) are tipping the US Fed to raise rates at a meeting later this week.

The S&P 500 Index (SP: .INX) slid 1.3% overnight, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJX: .DJI)slipped 0.77% and the Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: .IXIC) slipped 1.96% on Monday, US time.

What's ahead?

ANZ highlighted it is a "big week for both central banks and US equities" in a research report released this morning.

Among the US stocks due to report earnings are Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL), Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META), Caterpillar Inc (NYSE: CAT), McDonald's Corp (NYSE: MCD), General Motors Company (NYSE: GM), United Parcel Service Inc (NYSE: UPS) and Alphabet Inc Class A (NASDAQ: GOOGL).

ANZ senior economist Felicity Emmett said these earnings announcements will provide a "micro overview of the macro economy". She added:

Investors bought into the 'soft landing' view in early 2023, despite the prospect of what could still be a bumpy ride for activity as the lagged effects of last year's interest rates front-loading and still-high inflation bite. 

Meanwhile, the United States Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is due to announce an interest rate decision on Thursday morning, Sydney time. ANZ is forecasting a 0.25% rate rise.

Commenting on this outlook, ANZ's Emmett said:

We expect a 25bp rate rise and anticipate that the Fed will caution against an early pause in the tightening cycle and certainly give the notion of cuts no rein.

Risk appetite could be vulnerable to a correction.

US stock market snapshot

Meta shares fell 3% on Monday and have shed 53% in the last year.

Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) shares lost 2% on Monday and have slid 18% in the last year.

Alphabet shares slid 2.74% on Monday and have tumbled 28% in the past year.

McDonalds shares dropped 0.58% on Monday but have climbed 4.41% in the last 52 weeks.

General Motors shares shed 4.37% on Monday and have slumped 31% in the last year.

Caterpillar shares fell 1.11% on Monday but have soared 29.74% in the past year.

The United Parcel Service share price lost 2.81% on Monday and has slid 12.48% in the last year.

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 Index has shed 11% in the last year, while the Dow Jones has lost 4% in a year and the Nasdaq Composite has shed nearly 20% in the past 12 months.

The post What to watch on the US stock market this week: ANZ appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

A dividend aristocrat is a very special thing. It is typically defined as a dividend share that has increased its annual dividend payouts to investors every year for at least 25 years.

Such a long and steady track record shows that a company is financially stable and strong enough to fork out such a large volume of cash consistently.

Over on the US markets, there are many dividend aristocrats. Some you might have heard of include Caterpillar Inc (NYSE: CAT), Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE: XOM), and McDonald's Corp (NYSE: MCD).

What's more, is that the US markets also boast quite a few dividend kings. These fabled royals of the share market have a 50-year streak of annually raising their dividends. This list is a lot smaller but includes Coca-Cola Co (NYSE: KO), Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE: CL), and Altria Group Inc (NYSE: MO).

Does the ASX offer any dividend aristocrats?

Unfortunately, here on the ASX, we have no dividend aristocrats by the US definition. Let alone dividend kings.

But we do have a couple of ASX dividend heavyweights that come close. And they are two shares that I think any investor could comfortably buy and hold for the long term.

The first is Brickworks Limited (ASX: BKW). Brickworks is a building and construction materials company. But it also has a few other earning streams, including from its lucrative property business.

Brickworks has a strong dividend track record. It hasn't raised its dividend for 25 consecutive years, so we can't call it an official dividend aristocrat.

But what it does have is a 45-year history of not cutting its dividends. In other words, Brickworks has either maintained or increased its annual dividends every year since 1976. Definity heavyweight material.

Soul Patts: 3 years to go

The second is Washington H. Soul Pattinson and Co Ltd (ASX: SOL).

Soul Patts is the closest thing to a dividend aristocrat the ASX has. No, Soul Patts hasn't quite got to 25 years of annual dividend raises. But it has upped its annual dividend every year since 2000. That means it's only three years away from becoming the ASX's first dividend aristocrat.

Soul Patts is a rather interesting company. It functions more as a listed investment company (LIC) than a traditional ASX business, owning large chunks of other ASX shares in a massive investment portfolio.

This it runs for the benefit of its shareholders. Soul Patts' largest holdings include TPG Telecom Ltd (ASX: TPG), New Hope Corporation Limited (ASX: NHC), and Brickworks itself.

But Soul Patts also owns a large and diversified portfolio of ASX 200 shares, thanks to the acquisition of ASX LIC Milton Corporation last year. These include your typical ASX holdings like BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP) and Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA).

Both of these would-be ASX dividend aristocrats have a long history of delivering meaningful returns to their shareholders. And both boast unrivalled dividend records on the ASX, if not yet long enough to qualify for the 'dividend aristocrat' tag.

As such, Soul Pattss and Brickworks are two ASX dividend heavyweights that I would happily buy and hold until retirement and beyond.

The post 2 ASX 200 dividend heavyweights to buy and hold until you retire appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Investors are breathing a sigh of relief on Dec. 2 following yesterday's Dow Jones Industrials (DJINDICES: ^DJI) 462-point decline. At 2:11 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones is up 680 points, or 2% higher, as investor worry about the Omicron variant of the coronavirus fades. Today's gains are broad, with 26 of the Dow Jones' 30 component stocks, including Boeing, higher today. 

Today's gains are led by aerospace giant Boeing (NYSE: BA), one of yesterday's worst performers. Shares are up more than 5% on both the reduced fears that Omicron will lead to broad travel bans and news that Chinese regulators are set to recertify the 737 MAX for commercial operation in that country. 

Following on Boeing's heels are payments and credit card giants Visa (NYSE: V) and American Express (NYSE: AXP), with shares up more than 4% on a hopeful outlook about the recovery of global travel and spending. Shares of yesterday's biggest loser, Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), are also up almost 3% today following yesterday's double-digit drop after giving underwhelming guidance for its fourth quarter. 

Today's worst-performing Dow stock is Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), down more than 1% on rumors that demand for the iPhone 13 is falling. 

Boeing investors hopeful on China and continued travel recovery

Word first got out a couple of weeks ago that the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) was getting closer to letting the company's flagship, narrow-body jet return to commercial service. But a report in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday offered more detail, including what looks like a complete list of changes it requires Boeing to make. That's a serious step toward recertification that would also likely lead to a big jump in orders for Boeing aircraft to service Chinese markets after a multiyear freeze on sales to Chinese operators. 

Boeing's gains, exceeding most stocks today, weren't just a product of good news out of China. Like the other consumer and travel-related companies that gained sharply today, investors are also betting that travel and spending will continue to trend higher, and the initial worries about the Omicron coronavirus variant are probably overdone. 

Omicron bull market?

It seems that many investors believe that to be the case, with most of yesterday's biggest losers and many of the Dow Jones stocks that fell yesterday reporting gains. These include Visa and American Express, which have seen most of their in-country payment volume recover and surge past 2019 levels. However, both have seen cross-border transactions from travel continue to lag pre-COVID numbers. Investors also sent bank stocks up today, with Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) up more than 2.5% on hopes for continued economic health and the potential that interest rates will move higher sooner rather than later. That's a positive for lenders. 

Shares of Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) and Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) also gained more than 2.5% today, on expectations that businesses will continue to buy heavy equipment, and consumers will continue to spend and increasingly travel, ideally to Disney resorts and theme parks. Home Depot (NYSE: HD), one of yesterday's biggest winners, gained another 2% today as investors remain convinced that the home improvement giant will continue to win customers looking to improve their current home or update the home they just bought. Housing demand continues to remain sky-high, a positive indicator for the home improvement giant's prospects. 

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

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Cathie Wood, the CEO of ARK Invest, is known for finding hypergrowth names with upside potential. The three largest holdings in ARK's six actively managed funds are Tesla, Square, and Teladoc. None of the three is cheap by traditional valuation metrics like price to sales (P/S) or price to earnings (P/E). But ARK believes that these companies, and others like them, will lead to a doubling of U.S. GDP to $40 trillion by 2035. 

By contrast, The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) will celebrate its 125^th anniversary on May 26. But while it's meant to reflect the entire U.S. economy, it doesn't exactly conjure an image of growth. In fact, the Nasdaq has given investors twice the return of the DJIA over the last five years.

Surprisingly, the four DJIA components that ARK owns -- Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT), Boeing (NYSE: BA), and Honeywell (NYSE: HON) -- are all relatively stable companies with histories of earnings growth, rather than up-and-coming rising stars. Here's why Cathie Wood likes these four Dow stocks, along with some surprising reasons she doesn't like a few others. 

1. Apple: $79.6 million

The ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (NYSEMKT: ARKF) owns 606,427 shares of Apple, which is worth nearly $80 million as of Apple's closing price on April 12. While this may sound like a lot, Apple is the fund's 24^th-largest holding and comprises less than 2% of its total value. ARK is a firm believer in mobile technology's increasing role in commerce, repeatedly noting the success of China's mobile payment system, so Apple's fintech developments like the Apple Card and Apple Pay make it a natural fit in ARK's Fintech ETF.

Augmented Reality (AR) is one of ARK's most closely followed trends. In its Big Ideas 2021 presentation, ARK called out Snapchat, Facebook, and Apple for increasing their investments in AR (all three companies are held in the Fintech Innovation ETF). ARK also supports Apple's decision to transition Macs to ARM processors. ARK believes ARM could become the new processor standard by 2030, displacing Intel and leading to further domination by AMD and NVIDIA. 

AAPL Total Return Level data by YCharts

2. Caterpillar: $75.6 million

Earth moving equipment manufacturer Caterpillar is the 15^th-largest holding in the ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF (NYSEMKT: ARKQ). After a strong market-beating year in 2020, shares of Caterpillar are currently right around their all-time high. In fact, Caterpillar is up over 25% so far in 2021, making it one of the best-performing stocks in the DJIA.

Caterpillar is an international company that generates over half its sales from outside the U.S. Global competition in the construction, mining, and energy industries is fierce, especially in China -- which is Caterpillar's hottest market. To stay ahead, Caterpillar is implementing machine learning and big data to help its customers better manage their fleets. Caterpillar has developed tools like Cat Connect and Cat Digital, which can be used for both existing and new equipment. 

3. Boeing: $22.5 million

Boeing is the 11^th-largest holding in the newly launched ARK Space Exploration & Innovation ETF (NYSEMKT: ARKX). As the world's second-largest maker of commercial airplanes and a leading aerospace company, Boeing has a clear role to play in the burgeoning space industry. Boeing's Defense, Space, and Security segment is a prime contractor for NASA's Space Launch System, a heavy-lift rocket for human space exploration. Boeing also builds satellites and software systems for commercial, military, and scientific exploration. 

4. Honeywell: $7.4 million

Honeywell is a minor holding, ranking 28^th in ARK's Space ETF. Honeywell manufactures and designs components for the commercial airline industry and the defense industry. However, its strides in the industrial internet of things (IIOT), which involves developing operational technology (OT) for industrial equipment, are right up ARK's alley. Honeywell would fit nicely into the ARK Innovation ETF (NYSEMKT: ARKK), the largest of its actively managed ETFs. But because the fund is centered almost entirely around tech stocks, that's unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Surprising Dow stocks ARK doesn't own

ARK's tech-centered focus may lead investors to assume it owns Salesforce and Microsoft, which are both Dow stocks. But it doesn't. The ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (NYSEMKT: ARKW) holds 53 securities, but not Verizon. And while five out of the DJIA's 30 components are financial companies, Ark's fintech fund holds none of them. Finally, the ARK Genomic Revolution Multi Sector ETF (NYSEMKT: ARKG) is focused heavily on healthcare, yet holds none of the DJIA's five healthcare stocks. 

Takeaways

Industrial stocks aren't often thought of as the most exciting sector on Wall Street. However, leading dividend-paying industrial stocks with growth potential have been handsomely rewarding investors for decades. Cathie Wood and her team think a handful of these names have bright futures in emerging industries. Honeywell and Caterpillar, in particular, stand out as two top-tier companies poised to raise their dividends and beat the market over the long term.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

The post Cathie Wood's ARK Invest only owns 4 Dow stocks, and they aren't what you think appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.