NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Using a call option to hedge against downward price risk is my favorite dividend-capture strategy. With this strategy, I have found I must be highly selective in my stock targets. In this review, I filter for the most worthy stocks also offering dividends.

Let's look at my first stock, Gannett as an example. Gannett operates as a media and marketing solutions company in the U.S. and internationally. Yield: 5.98% Dividend Amount: $0.20 Ex-Dividend Date: June 06, 2012 Beta: 2.47

Strategy: Buy Gannett stock and offer to sell the June $13.00 strike or lower call for 37 cents over the intrinsic value. ...

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BALTIMORE (Stockpickr) -- Even though the broad market is still stammering after Friday's 1.6% pullback in the S&P 500, a new set of Rocket Stocks is fuelling up for blastoff this week.

Friday's pullback was even more painful for NASDAQ stocks, the index crashing 2.25% by the session's close as pressure from jobs numbers and black clouds from Europe blew over trading floors in New York. This morning, things aren't looking much better thanks to massive selling in Asia and to a much lesser extent in Europe today.

All told, last week took 2.44% out of the S&P 500, ringing in the biggest weekly loss in 2012. That sort of "record setting" decline is more significant for the headline effects it'll have on investors than the actual implications of the pullback. At this point, the S&P remains cautiously strong from both a technical and fundamental perspective. With the tail end of earnings season wrapping up this week, piling more money onto the S&P's record corporate profits could help snap investors out of "risk off" mode. ...

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NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of the following stocks hit 52-week highs on Thursday: Altria, Brinker International, SAP, Lennar, Comcast and Seagate Technology.

Each of the stocks received a buy rating from TheStreet Ratings.

Altria ...

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MILLBURN, N.J. (Stockpickr) -- American companies are in a unique position relative to their counterparts in Europe and those in some emerging markets. Cash generation, repayment of debt, low interest rates and record earnings are combining to lower American corporate cost of capital, improve their balance sheets and return more value to shareholders.

With that in mind, I decided to seek out companies with low WACC (weighted average cost of capital), high Altman Z-Scores (a measure of balance sheet health), high ROCE (return on common equity) and above-market-average dividend yields.

After I performed the analytic screen, I examined the top-rated companies for their fundamental outlook and eliminated any stocks I did not believe were worthy of an investment. ...

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(Story updated to add that Goldman Sachs upgraded Enbridge Partners to "neutral" from "sell" on Wednesday.)

BOSTON (TheStreet) -- It's apparently going to take a prolonged stock market rally with no corrections to get investors back into equities this year. Their risk-averse posture has them cowering in bonds, despite the Dow Jones Industrial Average's close above 13,000 and the S&P 500's best February performance in 14 years.

That means the average investor is likely missing out, once again, on gains that could make up for the losses of the past few years. One way to stick a toe back in the market is to buy stocks of financially strong companies with high, growing dividends. ...

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(Story updated to add that British Tobacco hit a 52-week high, days after it said it will raise its dividend by 11% and launch a $2 billion share-buyback program this year.)

BOSTON (TheStreet) -- U.S. tobacco stocks had a killer 2011 with an average gain of 30%. Although they're off to a wheezing start this year, companies including Altria Group and Reynolds American still represent good value as they're using their huge cash flows to buy back shares and lift already hefty dividends.

U.S. tobacco stocks are up an average of 3.2% this year, while the S&P 500 has risen 8.8%, according to S&P. ...

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BALTIMORE (Stockpickr) -- Even with U.S. stocks performing well at the start of 2012, dividends are still investors' best bet in this market. The S&P 500 index has rallied nearly 8% this year, one of the strongest starts for equities in recent memory, but that doesn't mean that dividends are out the door -- not in the least.

In the past, dividends have been the last resort for a rough market. During the bull markets of the last decade, investors have opted to search out stocks with potential for capital gains, even if that meant sacrificing yield for their portfolios. But looking at the returns of the last decade has done quite a bit to change that mentality. In the past 10 years, dividend payouts have returned the vast majority of stock returns for investors, sparing income investors from the "lost decade" scenario that's scared so many away from stocks in the last few years.

>>7 Hot Stocks on Traders' Radars ...

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NEW YORK (MainStreet) -- Counterfeiting is usually associated with guys in trench coats selling fake Rolexes or Louis Vuitton handbags on New York street corners. And while luxury watches are indeed a popular item among counterfeiters, the practice hardly ends there.

To find out how deep the knock-off rabbit hole goes, we spoke to Bill Patterson of OpSec Security, which provides global anti-counterfeiting solutions to brands in various sectors. As he explained, it's not just brands that need to worry about counterfeiting. It's also consumers, who can overpay for cheap knockoffs but might also be harmed physically by cheap imitations of pharmaceuticals and perfume. And while some counterfeit items are easy to spot, others can look amazingly close to the real thing, at least to the untrained eye. Consumers can not only overpay for cheap knockoffs, but might also be harmed physically by cheap imitations of pharmaceuticals and perfume.

"Counterfeit goods run the same gamut of quality levels that you'll find among retail items that you find in stores," he explains. "You will find some counterfeiters that just slap a Coach label on a bag, but you'd say, 'There's no way that's real.' There are others that can be more challenging." ...

NEW YORK (TheStreet) - Shares of cigarette companies Philip Morris International and Lorillard hit a 52-week high Thursday.

Both companies got a buy rating from TheStreet Ratings.

Philip Morris International ...

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The following commentary comes from an independent investor or market observer as part of TheStreet's guest contributor program, which is separate from the company's news coverage.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- I just saw the great movie "White Irish Drinkers" and it got me thinking. Global deaths from smoking are almost twice as high as alcohol-related deaths -- 5.4 million vs. 2.5 million annually. And yes, it is also true that nearly half of all heavy smokers will die because of the "sticks." But there are many other ways drugs can kill. It turns out that the damage resulting from excessive alcohol consumption dwarfs that from cigarette smoking. Smoking and Drinking 'Externalities' Heavy smoking/drinking causes health problems for the individual smoker/drinker -- like death! But aside from secondary smoke, the side effects/externalities of smoking are quite limited. You can work (even if you have to go outside periodically for smokes), you can drive to and from work, and you can be a good parent.

If anything, smoking allows people to relax and focus more on the task at hand. And with the growing global obesity epidemic, smoking is a plus -- weight control. As I have noted in an earlier piece, people who stop smoking normally gain 5 to 15 pounds....

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Using social media is harder to resist than picking up a cigarette and smoking it, a new study finds.

The survey makes the claim that not only is social media addictive, it's more addictive than some substances thought to be among the worst addictions of all: cigarettes and alcohol. The findings were released in an article from The Guardian.

The University of Chicago's Booth School of Business did a study in Wurtzburg, Germany comprised of 205 people, and the results found that people gave in to their social media craving far more than other perceived desires. ...

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The following commentary comes from an independent investor or market observer as part of TheStreet's guest contributor program, which is separate from the company's news coverage.

NEW YORK (Insider Monkey) -- During the recent market turmoil, the financial markets have been hit by one crisis after another. Most people are pessimistic about the economy.

Central banks all around the world have been trying to stimulate the economy by applying inflationary monetary policies. One result of the Fed's monetary policy is ultra-low yielding long-term Treasuries. It doesn't make sense to invest in 10-year Treasuries for the long term. With the low interest rates, investors are better off by investing in high-dividend stocks. ...

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Story corrected to explain how Windstream will need to migrate land-line customers to other services and not mobile services.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- With so much for investors to worry about in 2012, from a potential Greek default to persistently high unemployment, it's no wonder they are thirsty for yield, particularly dividend-paying stocks.

But with the dividend strategy becoming a crowded space more and more each day, investors would be smart to look more closely at individual company fundamentals rather than blindly chase a high-yielding name. ...

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NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Procter & Gamble, the consumer products giant, reported core profit for the fiscal second quarter of $1.10 a share on sales of $22.14 billion.

Analysts expected it to post earnings of $1.08 a share on revenue of $22.19 billion. Net earnings were 57 cents a share.

A year ago, P&G earned $1.11 a share on revenue of $21.3 billion. ...

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(To add That Goldman Sachs Cut Philip Morris' rating To Neutral From Buy.)

BOSTON (TheStreet) -- If the past is indeed prologue, now is the time to get conservative and consider these less-than-barn-burning stocks, which have outperformed lots of high-fliers.

This is an especially important consideration if you're looking at your retirement years, and you can't stomach another decade of volatile and negligible returns as we've seen over the past decade. ...

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