Alan Brochstein of AnalystForHire has been preaching that this is not the time to "be reaching for yield." He wrote articles in November, July and May, how companies that are well-capitalized with a history of sustainable dividend growth may provide shelter from the storm. He conjects that these conservative growth stocks will become increasingly in demand as aging baby boomers transition their accounts towards higher income generation and less speculative growth.

So, to get an idea of what we might want to look for he has created a screen, using StockVal, designed to identify companies that pay sustainable and growing dividends that yield in excess of 2%. Specifically:

* 2% minimum dividend yield (valuation)
* 150% maximum of five-year median forward PE (valuation)
* 5% minimum annualized revenue-per-share growth for the past three years (growth)
* 5% minimum annualized earnings-per-share growth for the past three years (growth)
* 5% minimum annualized dividend-per-share growth for the past three years (growth)
* 10% minimum return on capital (safety)
* 10% maximum decline in next year’s projected earnings over past twelve weeks (safety)
* 35% maximum total debt to capital ratio (safety)
* 10-year minimum history of dividend payments (safety)
* 67% maximum payout of earnings (safety)

At the top of the list:

Chevron (CVX)
ConocoPhillips (COP)
Dow Chemical (DOW)
Amcol (ACO)
United Parcel Service (UPS) and
3M (MMM)