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After the market closed on Thursday, the Federal Reserve increased the discount rate by 25 basis points. The nominal move may be the beginning of the end of the easy money policy that has been used to lift the U.S. economy out of recession.

Let’s not get too excited about what the central bank is now saying is merely a technical move. While all expect rates to rise eventually the timing of real increases in rates is still far down the road.

Interest rates even with Thursday’s move are still essentially zero and the yield curve remains quite steep. (10 stocks benefiting from a steep yield curve)

Such an environment has been quite the challenge for those investors needing income from investments for retirement living expenses. Bank CD’s and Treasuries simply won’t cut it.

What does cut it in this environment? Dividend stocks are clearly the big winners.

A federal deficit crisis is looming, unemployment remains high, and the Federal Reserve has increased one of its key interest rates. But, while concerns linger about the economy, the investment gurus I keep an eye on have been sounding bullish on stocks over the past week.

Most notable among the top strategists who spoke out was mutual fund legend Peter Lynch, one of the investors upon whom I base my Guru Strategy computer models. Lynch, who retired as manager of Fidelity's Magellan fund in the early 90s after producing one of the best track records of all time, doesn't give a lot of interviews these days. But this week he opened up for the Israeli publication Globes, and he said that the so-called "lost decade" for stocks hasn't soured his view of stocks.

• Check out my Buffett-inspired Top Stocks Tracking portfolio at Wall Street Survivor

"The significance of the lost decade is very simple,” Lynch said. “Companies earn more than they did ten years ago, and they are traded at lower prices than they were then. There’s an investment opportunity here. There are companies on the market with good balance sheets and wonderful reputations, that make better profits today than ten years ago, and will continue to grow. This is an extraordinary period for investment.”

Disney (DIS) coughed up $4 billion to buy Marvel last August, but all it may get for its investment is a collection of second- and third-tier superheroes. 



• See slideshow: Marvel Heroes Coming to a Theater Near You

That leaves the likes of Nick Fury, Big Bertha and Ant-Man.



By Bill Hardekopf, TheStreet

Citigroup (C) is adding annual fees to many popular credit cards a week before new credit card rules go into effect.

Some Citigroup cardholders are receiving letters about a $60 annual fee that is being attached to their account effective April 1. If consumers make $2,400 in purchases during the year, the annual fee will be credited to their account. Only about 20% of credit cards in the US have annual fees, according to data compiled by LowCards.com.

It appears that Citigroup's test of adding an annual fee to a small share of customers in August 2009 proved to be successful for the issuer, which competes with Visa (V), MasterCard (MC) and Capital One (COF).

Tiger Woods started his long road back to the golf course today with a much-anticipated statement in Florida. However, a 15-minute affair with no time for questions is far from a sign Tiger is embracing the public eye again.

The jury is still out on whether the golf great has made the right move with his stonewalling since the infamous car crash over Thanksgiving. But one thing that's certain is that Woods' sponsors Electronic Arts (ERTS), Procter & Gamble (PG) and Nike (NKE) don't have the luxury of waiting this thing out any longer. They need to decide very quickly whether they're sticking with the Tiger brand.

Here's what some of the leading Tiger Woods sponsors appear to be planning.

By Jim Cramer, TheStreet

If you step back from the emotion of a Fed gone from soft to not-so-soft and ask what it really means, you come back to a simple concept: Are the banks strong enough to borrow from the private markets?

The answer, I think, is yes, except the ones that were goners anyway, including the several the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will seize this weekend as part of its Friday-night seizure policy.

That's really the only "real world" implication. That and the relentless decline of the euro becomes a little more relentless.

Thanks to a combination of ultralow interest rates and massive government support, homes prices started to climb early last year -- ending three years of pain that cut 30% off of the peak values reached in 2006. For many, it seemed as though the housing implosion was finally over.

Unfortunately with many of these supports about to end, and with the underlying supply-demand relationship still soft, another round of price declines looks inevitable. This is the opinion of the global economics team at Deutsche Bank doesn't expect home prices to put in a definitive bottom until 2011 as the inventory of vacant homes remains high and foreclosures continue to mount.

Even if you have a low opinion of economists and their forecasts, the stock market is singing the same sad tune about the housing market. Right now, after testing resistance at the top of a seven-month trading range, homebuilder stocks like D.R. Horton (DHI), Toll Brothers (TOL), and  Lennar (LEN) have stalled out and are starting to roll over.

The financial crisis, stock market crash and bear market of the last two years led many to believe that buy and hold investing is a sure way to performance mediocrity. Trading is surely the way to go in this day and age.

But like most things the pendulum swing to trading may have gone too far.

And for what benefit? According to this Wall Street Journal article a study by discount brokers of some 2 million trades found that those who trade the most fared no better than those who traded the least.

By Jim Woods, InvestorPlace.com

By now, nearly everyone is acutely aware of just how big Toyota's (TM) recall problems have become. But the Japanese automaker's woes aren't just confined to throttle pedals and steering wheels. Nor are its problems purely the province of product liability lawsuits.

Now, Toyota's troubles have become political.

Congress, as it's always zealous to do with any crisis, has pushed itself into the center of the Toyota turmoil. A House committee has asked Akio Toyoda, the chief executive of Toyota, to testify at a hearing in Washington next week on the recalls of millions of faulty vehicles. 

I suspect that many in Congress are champing at the bit to grill Toyoda and other executives over the company's problems -- and here's why.

On Feb. 1, Sysco (SYY) reported earnings of 45 cents a share for the company's fiscal second quarter. That was 3 cents a share above Wall Street projections. 

Revenue for the three months that ended in December 2009 was $8.87 billion, roughly matching analysts' expectations for $8.83 billion.

The most encouraging news in my opinion came on operating margins. Second-quarter revenue fell by 3.1% from the year-earlier period, showing that the company and the economy aren't yet out of the woods.

By Jeanine Poggi, TheStreet

Don't expect too many surprises from retailers' fourth-quarter earnings reports. Most companies cut costs dramatically in 2009, so modest sales growth could boost earnings, says Craig Johnson, president at Customer Growth Partners, a retail consulting firm.

Investors should look for stable prices, sequential sales growth and commodity forecasts. The strongest retailers will be able to increase sales without giving up margin gains from the past year, says Chandi Neubauer, an analyst at Majestic Research. Steer clear of retailers that plan to add US stores in 2010 or even 2011, says Wall Street Strategies analyst Brian Sozzi. The domestic economy must strengthen before companies can resume growth.

These retail stocks offer good upside potential: