Mr. Rogers always related his mom's advice on how to find hope in times of crisis. "Look for the helpers," Nancy Rogers would say. "You will always find people who are helping."
This isn't advice from a Wall Street wizard, but it is applicable to the stock market in this time of pandemic. Some call it "socially conscious" or "responsible" investing. Let's just say you can do well by investing in companies that are doing good.
Here are 10 I like from the Fortune 500, from mega-corporation to regional operations.
PBS
Won't you be my neighbor?
Apple
Apple, Inc. (AAPL -0.20%) has partnered with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to launch a COVID-19 Screening Tool mobile app and corresponding website that also links to state health departments and serves as a pop-up library of information. It is also partnering with rival Google to develop a coronavirus tracker app using iOS and Android location services to help chart and predict the spread of the virus in the community.
AT&T
AT&T Inc. (T -0.70%) rolled out a mobile cell tower to the Port of Los Angeles to support communications to the U.S. Navy Hospital Ship Mercy and as of April 11 had 19 portable cellular phone sites operating, with more than 41 deployed and ready to boost mobile data connections. Also, it granted public safety agencies free access to 76 portable cell sites on its FirstNet public safety broadband network, supporting quarantine zones, airports, and emergency command centers for free. AT&T public Wi-Fi hotspots are now open to everyone, and AT&T home and wireless internet customers have been upgraded to unlimited data.
Bank of New York Mellon
Founded in 1874 by the Twenty Dollar Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, investment services company The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BK -0.62%) provided 600 iPads to the NYC Health + Hospitals system to distribute to isolated COVID-19 patients so they can video chat with friends and family that are not allowed to visit.
Duke Energy
Charlotte, North Carolina-based Duke Energy Corporation (DUK -0.04%) announced it will temporarily suspend utility disconnections for nonpayment and waiving late payment fees for its customers, providing welcome relief for many of its almost 7.7 million retail customers across six states.
Emerson Electric
St. Louis-based Emerson Electric Company (EMR 1.03%) serves the oil and gas, pharmaceutical, food and beverage, residential and commercial heating and air conditioning industries to name a few. It has retooled some of its production lines to create surgical face masks, face shields, and disposable gowns, and leveraged its supply chain to get expedite delivery of personal protective equipment to healthcare providers. It has ramped up production of printed circuit boards for ultrasonic welding equipment that is essential to manufacturing N95 face masks. Also, Emerson HVAC thermostat technology is being used to maintain environmental control (temperature and humidity) of COVID-19 test kits as they go from development to distribution across the country.
General Motors
General Motors Company (GM 0.78%) has pledged to tweak its auto assembly lines to manufacture 10,000 critical care ventilators in partnership with private company Ventec Life Systems, and to manufacture and distribute up to 1.5 million Level 1 face masks per month as the pandemic continues. GM re-opened its Warren, Michigan facility — that once built transmissions for the Chevrolet Malibu — to produce the masks and had it running in less than seven days.
Gilead Sciences
Foster City, California-based Gilead Sciences, Inc. (GILD -0.51%) is working on what could be a major pharmaceutical solution to COVID-19, in its drug Remdesivir. Clinical trials are underway, and in the meantime it has increased production of the drug, with sights set on producing 500,000 new doses by October and more than a million by the end of 2020. It already had a stockpile of 1.5 million doses — which it offered to the healthcare community for free. It has partnered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the Department of Defense (DoD) - CBRN Medical in the United States, and the China CDC and National Medical Product Administration (NMPA), and the World Health Organization (WHO) internationally.
McDonald’s
McDonald's Corporation (MCD 0.78%) announced April 9 it has donated $3.1 million in food to support local communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, including over 1.2 million pounds of beef; more than 1.1 million pounds of dairy products including white and chocolate milk, buttermilk and yogurt; over 433,000 pounds of bagels, cookies and pies; over 62,000 pounds of fresh produce; and 52,000 pounds of granola. The company said it is planning to donate 400,000 KF94 masks to the State of Illinois Emergency Operation Center specifically and 750,000 N95 masks to the City of Chicago. It will also donate 250,000 to the state of Illinois in general, for other healthcare providers.
Sherwin-Williams
Cleveland-based paint and specialty coatings maker The Sherwin-Williams Company (SHW 1.01%) is donating tens of thousands of N95 masks, protective gloves, and coveralls to hospitals, clinics, and first responders across the country, including 50,000 pairs of gloves and 10,000 N95 masks to the Cleveland Clinic, and 6,500 N95 masks to the state of Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. It also delivered 150 gallons of paint to Chicago convention center McCormick Place — being transformed into an alternate care facility to care for 3,000 patients.
Xerox
Xerox Holdings Corporation (XRX) has teamed up with Vortran Medical Technology to scale up production of up to 1 million inexpensive disposable Go2Vent ventilators — that can serve as a critical stopgap for hospital-grade ventilators. It will be rapidly scaling up production from approximately 40,000 units in April to between 150,000 and 200,000 a month by June.
The company has also partnered with Hickey Freeman to co-design and produce 10,000 medical-grade face masks using printer filters.
It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood
These 10 are not the only ones changing their mindset or machinery to serve the community in the fight against COVID-19, of course. There are many, many more. Sure, we all invest in equities to get a return, to make money. But the times we are living in demand a different outlook. I'm not saying to ditch your portfolio for the sake of sentimentality. Not in the least. Rather, consider supporting companies that have joined the fight. We are all in this together, after all.
