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.

January 10, 2011 - Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ-NYSE) offers various products, technologies, software, solutions, and services worldwide. The company's Services segment provides consulting, outsourcing, and technology services to infrastructure, applications, and business process domains. It serves manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, communications, energy, transportation, and consumer and retail industries, as well as governments.

The HP Software segment provides enterprise IT management solutions, information management and business intelligence solutions, and communications and media solutions.

Its Personal Systems Group segment offers personal computers (PCs) comprising commercial PCs, consumer PCs, workstations, handheld computing devices, calculators, and other related accessories, and software and services for the commercial and consumer markets.

The Imaging and Printing Group provides consumer and commercial printer hardware, printing supplies, printing media, and scanning devices, such as inkjet and Web solutions, laserjet and enterprise solutions, managed enterprise solutions, graphics solutions, and printer supplies.

Its HP Financial Services segment offers leasing, financing, utility programs, and asset recovery services; and financial asset management services for enterprise customers, as well as specialized financial services to SMBs, and educational and governmental entities. The company also provides various network infrastructure products, including Ethernet switch products that enhance computing and enterprise solutions under the brand name of ProCurve Networking. Hewlett-Packard Company was founded in 1939 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

H-P had management turmoil last year, losing its chief executive officer to a scandal that is still in the news. Investors liked his business results but were unsure of the new CEO. The stock weakened in the second half of the year as the new officer took command, but now it seems to be gaining upward traction. And it's more than the CEO giving the stock lift.

In the final quarter of last year, sales were up 8% compared to the same quarter in 2009. Businesses were ordering more of everything while consumers held back. All HP markets were solid with Asia showing good strength except in low-end consumer notebooks in China. HP's notebooks were not well made there, but the company is fixing that problem. Margins improved thanks to higher sales in the networking and server businesses while commodity prices in the personal systems division were more favorable. That more than compensated for higher research and development costs.

The company has been investing heavily in anticipation of a better global economy. Research and development costs are up. A larger salesforce is in place. And a few acquisitions made over the last several years are paying off. Another way management is helping shareholders: a major stock buy back program. In the fourth quarter alone, the company bought 96 million shares for about $4 billion. Most likely that program will continue but not as aggressively.

More numbers: Trailing P/E is 12.1. Forward P/E is 7.85. Price to sales is .78. Price to book is 2.46. Book value is $18.35. Operating margin for the last 12 months was 10.25% and Profit margin was 6.95%. Return on equiy was a noteworthy 21.64%. Return on assets was 6.75%. Total revenues in 2010 were $126.03 billion. This year, anlaysts's estimates are for $129.2, then $133.98 billion in 2012. Total cash is $10.93 billion for $4.99 a share. Total debt is $22.03 billion for a Debt/Equity ratio is .55. Current ratio is 1.10. In the last 52 weeks, the stock is down 14.26%. There are 2.19 billion shares outstanding. Insiders own .05% of the stock. Institutions have 78.80% of it. The annual dividend is 32 cents for a yield of .7%.

Conservative investors can dig into HPQ and find a lot of good. With plenty of cash, strong earnings and balance sheet, management has shown it can deliver for shareholders. With the large cash position, it can buy back more shares, buy other companies or increase the dividend. And if the global economy continues to recover, look for all the earnings forecasts to be revised upward.

- Company Web site: www.hp.com

- Ted Allrich