Barron's Picks And Pans: REITs, Brown-Forman, ConAgra Foods And More - Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN), AvalonBay Communities (NYSE:AVB)

Featured stories this weekend in Barron's ponder the prospects for a spirits and wine giant, a prepackaged foods maker and a commercial real-estate company.

This issue also offers a look at five real estate investment trusts worth considering now.

Other articles discuss reasons the stock market will not crash and 15 stocks with big, safe dividends.

"5 REIT Plays That Are Worth a Look" by Sandra Ward points out that, come September, real estate will be its own sector in the S&P 500 equity index. Will more REITs go public after they are no longer considered financials? The five REIT picks from two advisors featured here include

AvalonBay Communities IncAVB

and

Public StoragePSA

. In "Brown-Forman: Whiskey Maker Looks Too Pricey," Jack Hough suggest that at 27 times earnings,

Brown-Forman CorporationBF

, the distiller of Jack Daniel's, is expensive, even for a maker of premium booze. Soaring demand for flavored bourbon may have boosted the company's valuation, but growth in the crowded field is slowing. Robin Goldwyn Blumenthal's "ConAgra Could Rise 30%" examines how Sean Connolly, the new CEO of

ConAgra Foods Inc

CAG

, plans to slim down the prepackaged food giant, boosting its margins, sales and profitability. Could Connolly be dressing up ConAgra to sell it? Find out why Barron's thinks its shares could rise 30 percent.

The shares of commercial real-estate giant

Jones Lang LaSalle IncJLL

look like a bargain, suggests "The Case for Buying Jones Lang LaSalle" by David Englander. Though the stock has been hammered since hitting highs last August, Barron's sees the sell-off as an overreaction, as well as an opportunity. The company's CEO recently took the opportunity to buy more shares. In Gene Epstein's cover story, "5 Reasons the Stock Market Won't Crash — Yet," see why Barron's thinks the stock market is unlikely to crater any time soon. Even though the bull market now is more than seven years old, stocks still have room to run. There is no need for investors to flee to safety, no need to worry about an imminent crash, says the article. Also in this week's Barron's:

Why the Federal Reserve Chair has changed her tune on interest rate hikes
Whether a new chief executive means the stock will rise
A list of 15 stocks with big, safe dividend yields
The price of optimism about Tesla Motors Inc TSLA
Whether Deckers Outdoor Corp DECK investors should take the money and run
An exchange traded fund (ETF) built to time the market
What may reenergize Amgen, Inc. AMGN

At the time of this writing, the author had no position in the mentioned equities.

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