3M Is Worldwide

A small but impressive lineup of big U.S.- based companies has reported solid results this earnings season. They may not be shooting the lights out at home, but with help from afar, their overall performance is solid. Consider, for example, Minnesota-based 3M (NYSE: MMM), which makes everything from Post-it Notes to electronics. In the quarter just ended, all six of its operating units improved their sales by rates ranging from more than 22 percent for the health-care segment to a single percent in the display and graphics area.

Patrick Campbell, 3M's chief financial officer, discussed the company's international growth in a quarterly conference call, saying: "We drove broad-based growth, with double digit dollar sales growth in Europe, Latin America and Canada, excluding divestitures. Even after excluding the positive currency impacts, local currency growth was positive in every major region of the world."

So 3M joins such other big and diverse U.S.-based international players such as Caterpillar, Honeywell and General Electric in growing and expanding nearly worldwide.

This group of companies has sufficient international coverage to reward us with growing earnings. A subset of that group, which includes 3M, is able to generate increasing earnings both at home and abroad. With a yield recently above 2.4 percent, the company is worth taking a closer look at.