Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory's (NASDAQ: RMCF) first fiscal quarter release had an undeniable theme running throughout. No, it wasn't a happy promo about its delicious confections. Instead, it was the very familiar issue of the recession. I guess the company's premium chocolates aren't wholly economically defensive in nature after all.

According to the results, sales declined by over 5%. Same-store franchised revenues dropped well over 6%. Earnings per diluted share were cut by 25% to 12 cents. Things are rough for Rocky Mountain.

In a race, when the yellow caution flag is out drivers are prohibited from advancing their position, and are subject to penalty.

In the stock market no such rule applies. When the caution flag goes up it is a sign you may be nearing an opportunity to advance your position, and it would be foolish not to do so. I think the market has definitely had the caution flag up the last two weeks as we enter earnings season.

I have written several articles regarding watch-lists encouraging our readers to be prepared for buying opportunities, and as I look at my watch-list it appears that many stocks are nearing prices that would make it attractive to add to my position.

After finding three stocks yesterday that were a good bet to beat the the S&P 500 index going forward, I decided to pursue this notion further. Each of yesterday's stocks was in a different industry that will have strong recurring revenue and pays a dividend; energy, food and booze.

Today's three stocks are in diversified mining, electric power utilities and high-tech defense. Going back ten years, they have all trounced the index and I'm betting they will continue to do so.

The following list of solid dividend payers are not likely to get anyone excited about future growth prospects like some small cap tech company with a hot IPO, but in these uncertain times being able to diversify into a reliable dividend paying stock might work while you ride out the economic storm.

Bank money market accounts, CD's and treasuries are not all that compelling right now. While it is wise to keep some cash handy in these places, you need not put all your resources there.

Earlier today my colleague Steven Halpern posted a story on the safest dividend payer in the DJIA and
Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) paying 6.1% was his conclusion. I recently posted about this stock pointing out the benefits of the communications companies, see: Chasing Value: AT&T and VZ, high yield plus safety

It is to be expected that a utility would show up on the list, given the strong recurring revenue and cash-flow and
Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) paying 6.39% is that company. I have written many positive posts about Duke and my view has not changed.

Despite what you here from almost all quarters about the market dropping ten percent or so, in what is deemed a bear market correction of our recent bear market rally, I will continue to buy into this market. Of course I will be selective, and as always be thinking long term. This has helped me substantially over the past ten months beating the market by a huge margin.

Keeping this in mind I examined my watch list for candidates that have been long term winners, and consistently beat the overall market using the Standard & Poors 500 index for comparison. The volatility in the market is certain to produce more buying opportunities.

The second quarter is now behind us and for the most part it was a positive one in terms of the market pushing higher almost 40%. This is the second review of my 2009 stock picks through June 30 (see: Chasing Value: 9 picks for 2009 -- APC, GE, ISRG, WFC and more). There was a lot of talk about green shoots this past quarter as Wall Street was looking for any small bit of optimistic data to support the market.

The federal printing presses continued to run at full speed pushing the dollar lower and oil prices higher. While the feds were printing money to cover their deficits, the States do not have that same luxury and many of them are having trouble balancing their budgets to the tune of billions of dollars.

Profits up in the heartland; at least for General Mills (NYSE: GIS) as they doubled in the fourth quarter beating analysts estimates by promoting their strong brands to consumers as management understood well the economic headwinds they were facing.

This contributed to GIS income for the year making it into positive territory as it reported this morning that net income edged up to $1.3 billion, or $3.80 per share, from $1.29 billion, or $3.71 per share, in the prior year. Annual sales climbed 8 percent to $14.69 billion from $13.65 billion.

Minneapolis-based General Mills Inc. (NYSE: GIS), the largest maker of breakfast cereal in the U.S., is scheduled to discuss its fiscal 2009 fourth-quarter and full-year results tomorrow morning in a conference call at 8:00 AM ET. You can catch the live webcast of the call on the company's website.

For the quarter in which General Mills sold part of its frozen bread dough business and introduced additional gluten-free cereals, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect the food maker to report earnings of $0.80 per share, which is 8.8% higher than in the same period of the previous year. Revenue for the quarter is expected to be 6.4% higher to $3.7 billion. The company, whose brands also include Pillsbury, Green Giant, and Haagen-Dazs, topped earnings estimates in four of the five past quarters, but fell short by 8 cents per share in the third quarter.

For those of you who are able to trade options, I have been writing more and more about naked puts, "selling to open" stock options that I have been doing all year with great returns due to an overabundance of fear.

Yesterday I reviewed one example in Chasing Value: GE -- maybe not eating out of trash cans after all, and today I review some of my favorite ways to make money and improve my portfolio.

Let me start with United Parcel Service Inc. (NYSE: UPS), a company with a great balance sheet, strong management, and trading 29% off its 52-week high, about where I sold it last year. I bought it earlier this year at the bargain basement price of $44, and now wished I had bought more.

According to reports, both PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) and Pepsi Bottling Group (NYSE: PBG) received an upgrade from Stifel Nicolaus. Both are now placed in the "buy" category. I'm sure the companies are happy to be away from the depressing "hold" moniker. The price targets on Pepsi and Pepsi Bottling Group are $64 and $37, respectively. As of this writing, Pepsi was priced at $54.82 while Pepsi Bottling Group's last bid was $33.71.

As can be seen, if Stifel Nicolaus turns out to be right, then traders might have a winning transaction on their hands. But one thing that must be remembered is the arbitrage game going on here. Pepsi wants to buy Pepsi Bottling Group. The latter is, of course, arguing for a higher purchase price.

Food processor ConAgra (NYSE: CAG), whose products share space at the supermarket with Kraft (NYSE: KFT), Kellogg (NYSE: K), and Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB), is down in Thursday's afternoon trading by over 6% as I write this. The company released earnings for the fourth quarter earlier this morning. Sales increased 8% according to the press release. Adjusted earnings from continuing operations came in at 41 cents per diluted share. This result benefited from an extra week.

The per-share profit compared very favorably to the 18 cents earned in last year's similar quarter. However, in terms of analyst expectations, the performance was relatively unimpressive. Earnings.com indicates that 41 cents is what the market was looking for.

There are better companies and better stocks to invest in these days than Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), but it would be silly of me to leave this company totally out of the picture just because it is not in my top ten.

The market is down a few percentage points as I write and MSFT is down in sync with the market. Many investment gurus have stated that they think a 10% correction is in order after the huge run-up since March 9, 2009. I am not so sure there will be a 10% correction or any particular correction just because the market was on a hot streak.

Nothing is worse than repeating past mistakes. Despite the awful economy, my newest portfolio is doing better than any other since 1999-2000, actually passing a 100% gain recently, although it has dropped back slightly with the market the past few trading days.

Ten years is recent enough for me to remember giving everything back and then some. I'm not doing that again. But what to do? I certainly do not like sitting with a heavy cash position collecting almost nothing. I have recently discussed this issue, see: Serious Money: ETF that's better than cash.

The solution is to find stocks that have low volatility, high yields, and the recurring revenue and strong cash flow to maintain the yield. Long term investors will not be surprised by my search leading me to AT and T (NYSE: T) and Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ), the two largest communications companies in the land.

The Clorox Company (NYSE: CLX), a company whose compatriots at the supermarket include Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) and Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL), gave and received some good news this week. First, let's mention the giving. Management saw fit to increase the dividend that it pays to shareholders. The quarterly payout went up 9% to $0.50 per share.

Now, for the receiving. According to an earlier item on BloggingStocks, Oppenheimer thinks the stock is worthy of an outperform rating. A price target of $70 has been set. Which is impressive, since the price of Clorox as of this writing is $56.32 per share.

Shares of Del Monte (NYSE: DLM) are up over 9% in early afternoon trading. And the volume is doing gangbusters business. The market is responding to the company's fourth-quarter results. The numbers did tell an overall fun story.

To begin with, revenues saw a big jump of 20%. As many news items have pointed out, price increases helped out. It should also be pointed out that the company's press release indicated that an extra week skewed things a bit. That's okay, though, it was still a good top-line performance. Earnings per share from continuing divisions came in at $0.35, which meant that Del Monte grew the bottom line by 75% (a couple elements affecting the perception of this profit expansion was a better tax situation linked to a positive change in California tax code and a $0.04 per-share transformation expense recorded in Q4 2008). Analysts said the company might earn $0.26 per share. That's a pleasant difference, isn't it?