There are no safe havens in the stock market. Every stock carries risk. But some less than others. This column features stocks that have shown one or more of the following characteristics: less volatility, better earnings, larger market caps, safe and increasing dividends. In these times of turmoil, our goal is to show readers better opportunities for investing with fewer risks.

June 7, 2010 - Equifax, Inc. (EFX-NYSE) collects, organizes, and manages various financial, demographic, employment, and marketing information in the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Peru, Portugal, the Republic of Ireland, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Uruguay.

Its TALX segment offers employment, income, and social security number verification services, as well as employment tax and talent management services.

The company's International segment provides information service products, which include consumer and commercial, such as credit and financial information, credit scoring, and credit modeling services; and credit and other marketing products and services.

Its North America Personal Solutions segment offers credit information, credit monitoring, and identity theft protection products directly to consumers via the Internet and in various hard-copy formats. The company's North America Commercial Solutions segment includes commercial products and services, such as business credit and demographic information, credit scores, and portfolio analytics, which are derived from its databases of business credit, financial, and demographic information. It serves customers across a range of industries, including the financial services, mortgage, retail, telecommunications, utilities, automotive, brokerage, healthcare, and insurance industries, as well as government agencies. Equifax Inc. was founded in 1899 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

Part of Equifax's fortunes are tied to the mortgage markets. When people buy homes, they need to supply credit reports to the lending institution. Each inquiry costs the consumer. With the purchase of homes extremely low, that stream of revenues has faltered, only partially being offset by the refinance market which is doing OK in this era of low interest rates. But refinances aren't the volume that new home purchases once were.

The company is seeing good demand for portfolio services and enabling technologies which expedite online credit approvals. In fact, Internet transactions are now about 1/3 of Equifax's requests. Those enabling technologies will be one of the growth drivers once the economy recovers. These technologies are also one of the competitive advantages EFX has.

On the international front, EFX saw sales increase about 15% to $116 million in the first quarter compared to last year's first. Annually, these make up about 25% of total revenues. Good demand for enabling technologies and analytic services were the main causes for the better first quarter showing.

In the U.S., consumers are still curious about their credit. They continually check to see how they're doing or if they qualify for certain loans. Inquiries for credit in the Personal Solutions division rose by 3% to $39.7 million in the first quarter. A new service called Credit Report Control is rolling out and will allow consumers to lock and unlock their credit files. This service and other new ones will help the top and bottom lines keep growing.

More numbers: Trailing P/E is 15.54 while the Forward P/E is 11. Price to sales ratio is 1.99. Price to book is 2.22. Book value is $13.02. Operating margin was 23.42% for the last 12 months with Profit margin at 12.84%. Return on equity was 15.72% and Return on assets was 7.93%. Total cash is $77.1 million or 61 cents a share. Current ratio is 1.04. There are 126.61 million shares outstanding and a Float of 125.42 million shares. Insiders own 6.48%. Institutions have 83.40%. The annual dividend is 16 cents which gives a yield of .6%. Value Line rates the stock a B++ for Financial Strength.

Conservative investors should like EFX. Revenues come from a variety of sources, domestically and internationally. Demand is growing for certain products, away from the mortgage markets. New products and services are being introduced or will be soon. Debt is only 37% of capital. There's a lot of good going on here. Check into it further if you're looking for a stock that weathered the economic storms of the last 2 years relatively well.

- Company Web site: www.equifax.com