5 Stocks to Capture Great Dividends

Kate Stalter: Today I�m on the phone with Dan Genter of RNC Genter Capital Management.

Dan, I wanted to start out asking you a little bit about the overall market. The indexes have been whipsawed by the European news lately. Has earnings season, in your view, been overlooked?

Dan Genter: Well, I think it has. I think what you�re really seeing is that we have a wonderful parade that�s going on here with regard to earnings.

Basically the black clouds are just blocking out all the sunshine and raining on the parade, if you will, because the earnings themselves have really demonstrated, I think, far more than what people anticipated.

I say that because everyone looked at last year and said, �Well, we�re seeing nice earnings, but basically it�s only due to cost cutting, and it just can�t continue.� And even though that�s going to certainly slow as we go into 2012, I think the surprise this year is the ability to see earnings increase, see margins stay fairly strong, and to do that with very, very small top-line growth.

So I think that when you look at the fact that overall this quarter, we�re going to see, once again, in excess of 15% increases in earnings, you�re seeing something that�s very, very positive, especially with the large-cap stocks.

Yes, the major part of cost cutting is probably behind us, but we can continue to maintain at least modest, certainly high single-digit to maybe low double-digit growth with the current situation that we have with the very marginal economic growth. I think that�s favorable, and it�s just not reflected in stock prices right now.

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Kate Stalter: Do you believe, given all that, though, that the European situation might continue to be that rain cloud you were mentioning?

Dan Genter: Well, I think it certainly is. I mean, it�s a major contagion. There are some aspects of it that are very real, and certainly we can�t be in the situation here where we�re whistling through the graveyard.

But on the other hand, there are some of these situations that are going on there that are going to have very little effect on the overall US market. But I don�t know that you�re going to wring that out of the psyche of investors, so I think you�re certainly going to have that overhang.

But I think that one thing that we�re seeing in this market now is that you have a completely new government, with the resignation of the Prime Minister in Greece; you also have the same thing in Italy. Again it would not be unlikely that we see it in some other governments as they go through some major austerity programs.