Weekly Roundup: MarketWatch top 10 stories March 19 - 23

Weekly Roundup MARCH 23, 2012 MarketWatch top 10 stories March 19 - 23 By MarketWatch NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — U.S. stocks closed the week mixed as tech stocks powered the Nasdaq while other major indexes fell. The Nasdaq Composite (COMP) managed a fractional gain for the period, while the Dow (DJIA) shed a bit more than 1%. The S&P 500(SPX)  posted its worst weekly performance of the year. Also please be sure to watch our Week Ahead videos.  U.S. Week Ahead: Consumer Confidence, Earnings Season Nears  Europe Week Ahead:UniCredit, Dax and FTSE $100 Greg Morcroft, assistant managing editor Apple becomes a portfolio must-have stock Now that it will start paying a regular dividend, Apple Inc.(AAPL)  has become a must-have for portfolio managers with blue-chip stocks in their investment funds. Now, your grandparents are going to be Apple shareholders, too.On Monday, Wall Street and investors alike got their wish when Apple announced its first dividend since 1995 as a way to give back some of its nearly $100 billion cash pile to investors. The move to issue a permanent payout, however, also marks the biggest to counter the wishes of the late Chief Executive Steve Jobs. Read Therese Poletti commentary on Apple and its dividend, on MarketWatch Inflation beating deflation Inflation has now pulled well ahead in its contest against deflation.Nowhere is this as evident as in the relative performance of the stock market and gold bullion. After several years in which the two tended to go up and down together, in recent weeks they have begun to diverge dramatically. Though this recent divergence stands out as something new, it actually represents a return to what, prior to 2008, was the norm. Read Mark Hulbert on MarketWatch Can you change your odds at the casino? There is no right time to count on Lady Luck standing with you at a casino, but there are times when the house edge will fluctuate and table minimums will change, which could affect your experience. Remember this, however: The house always has the upper hand, which means odds are that you will lose more money than you will ever win. Read about boosting your luck at casinos, on MarketWatch Front run Buffett: Buy SNI before he does I recommend investors buy stock in Scripps Networks Interactive (SNI)  before Warren Buffett buys the whole company.I can't say that Mr. Buffett has his eye on this company but SNI is a modern-day example of the media/publishing companies for which he has shown a long-standing interest. His interest in media/publishing stocks is grounded in the superior economic earnings these businesses can achieve. And SNI, with a 21% return on invested capital (ROIC), exhibits the kind of scale that Mr. Buffett knows leads to superior economic earnings. Read David Trainer's SNI analysis, on MarketWatch Tech stocks tune up: 2 to buy, 3 to sell Tech stocks have been going like gangbusters in 2012. The clearest indicator of this success is the technology-focused Nasdaq index eclipsing the 3,000 mark for the first time since the dot-com bubble. The benchmark has added almost 20% in the past three months or so. But will the momentum in tech last or is it time to do some spring cleaning to your portfolio? Here are two tech stocks to buy this April and three more you should consider selling before they flop: Read Jeff Reeves stock picks, on Marketwatch China factories slumping amid low demand Chinese factory activity is slowing sharply, dragging on employment amid a deepening slowdown in global demand and aggravated by a stall in domestic consumption, according to March survey data showing new orders at a four-month low. A preliminary reading of HSBC's manufacturing purchasing managers' index for March, released Thursday, printed at 48.1 on a 100-point scale, down from a final reading of 49.6 in February. The flash PMI is based on 85% to 90% of the total responses during a given month and is an early indicator of business conditions facing Chinese manufacturers. Read about China's factories slowing, on MarketWatch Q&A with Sheila Bair on the Fed's stress tests Some of the biggest banks in the U.S., including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and J.P. Morgan Chase, passed the Federal Reserve's stress test but would be considered overleveraged if Sheila Bair were running the examinations.Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. between 2006 and 2011, told MarketWatch that the Fed should have focused more heavily on limiting leverage as part of the stress test conducted on 19 big banks. The following is an edited transcript of a conversation with Bair. Read full interview, on MarketWatch Jeremy Lin's star not fading off court For his aunt's first-ever New York Knicks game last Wednesday, Antonio Yu shelled out $560 for a pair of tickets, and, to be certain they were appropriately dressed for the occasion, he paid $250 apiece for two officially licensed Jeremy Lin jerseys. While the atmosphere of "Linsanity" surrounding the point-guard phenom may have died down on the hardwood, on the commercial side there still appears to be plenty of passion. Read about merchandising Lin on MarketWatch Tax changes loom, it may be time to harvest gains What's better? Capital gains and dividend income, or just capital gains? News that Apple plans to pay out $2.65 per share per quarter starting later this year has more than a few scurrying to answer that question.For many years, regular Joe shareholders of Apple, which has nearly $100 billion sitting in cash, didn't really have to worry about that question. Regular Joe shareholders only had to worry about paying taxes — depending on their tax bracket — on their capital gains, assuming they sold their shares and assuming they actually had gains. Read Bob Powell column on capital gains and tax season, on MarketWatch 'Hunger Games' thrills Lionsgate investors Lionsgate, boosted by the film "The Hunger Games," has become a darling of Wall Street."The Hunger Games," adapted from the much-discussed book of the same name, will surely spawn a franchise to be mentioned in the same breath as "Harry Potter" (albeit considerably more softly).It takes place in a dystopian society in which teenagers must engage in a to-the-death competition to entertain people. (Yes, it resembles life in Hollywood.) Earlier this week, shares of Lionsgate, whose parent company is Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. had rocketed about 77% year to date, representing a sevenfold gain over the 11% registered by the Standard & Poor's 500 in the same period. Read about the impact of The Hunger Games for Lionsgate's bottom line,on MarketWatch Get the latest news on our mobile site: http://www.marketwatch.com/m MarketWatch has sent you this newsletter because you signed up to receive it. To ensure you receive this newsletter in the future, please add marketwatchmail.com to your list of approved senders. Sent to: kumaresan.selva.blogger@gmail.com Unsubscribe | Subscribe Copyright 2012 MarketWatch, Inc. All rights reserved. MarketWatch, the MarketWatch logo, and BigCharts are registered trademarks of MarketWatch, Inc. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy (updated 6/26/07). MarketWatch - Attn: Customer Service, 201 California St., San Francisco, CA 94111