Stock Picks for Today: Retail and Dividend Plays

Where do you put your money now? CNBC asked the experts what stocks they would pick.

Retail Plays

"If you look at retailers, for example, they generally start to do well mid-recession, when the Fed is lowering rates, when their margins are coming in, and when their earnings are poor... of those things are happening right now."

David Katz, Matrix Asset Advisors Chief Investment Officer

Katz recommends: Staples , Wal-Mart , Omnicom , Time Warner and Comcast

Beating Boomerangst With Dividends

"The aging of the baby boomers is a major secular trend that is going to affect the financial markets for the better part of the next two decades.  The thrust of it is that baby boomers are looking to replace earned income with diversified strains of unearned income, and if part or al of that unearned income can grow while you’re in retirement, obviously you can keep pace with or actually outpace the rate of inflation and maintain your purchasing power.”

Joseph Keating, RBC Bank Chief Investment Officer

Keating recommends: United Technologies , Rockwell International , Honeywell , Nike

, PepsiCo , Procter & Gamble , Colgate Palmolive   and VF Corporation

Betting on Interactive Data

"This is the pricing service for pricing things such as mortgage securities...As we seek more independent pricing in some of this toxic debt...I think you're going to see more need for somebody like Interactive Data , which is generating a tremendous amount of free cash flow yield."

David Sowerby, Loomis Sayles & Co.

Sowerby also likes: Deere , MasterCard , Rollins , Cisco