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.

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EMC isn't done growing. Recently it bought Data Domain (late July), a deduplication firm (deduplication is removing multiple copies of the same data, saving storage system space). One of its main competitors NetApp bid for Data Domain as well. Data Domain should add $200 million in sales in 2009 and with EMC's own deduplication division show revenues of $1 billion in 2010. The purchase will clip about 2 cents a share in earnings this year but analysts believe it will be neutral to positive for earnings in 2010.

Revenues will be lower this year also, down 7.3%. In 2008, they were $14.77 billion. This year, the consensus estimate is for $13.79 billion, then rebounding to $15.06 billion, an increase of 9.2%.

EMC's clients are starting to return to more normal spending patterns, particularly as to the timing of purchases and the spending approval processes. Its high end products like Symmetrix are still seeing weak demand, but the mid-level ones like CLARiiON systems are picking up. If the economy begins to mend in 2010, as most economists believe, EMC should see increased IT spending throughout its product lines.

The company isn't looking for old technology to come back. It's focused on cloud computing where software and services are delivered over the Internet and virtualized data centers. It also has a majority ownership in VMware which is a virtualization provider.

Some numbers: P/E is 32. Price to Sales is 2.60. Price to book is 2.61. Book value per share is $6.95. Over the last 12 months, Operating margin was 11.5% with a Profit margin of 8.01%. Return on Equity was 8.4%. Total cash is $7.26 billion. That's $3.59 per share. Total debt is $3.05 billion. Current ratio is 2.18. There are 2.02 billion shares outstanding. Institutions own 78% of them. There is no dividend. Value Line gives the stock an A rating for Financial Strength.

Investors like this stock. Some love it. That's evident from its high P/E ratio and the fact that it's up over 100% from a low of $8.25 in November of last year. Conservative investors will like the large cash position, giving the company flexibility to pay off its debt (only 17% of capital), buy more companies, buy back stock or start a dividend.

- Company Web site: www.emc.com

Ted Allrich

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