After a hiccup on Monday, equity markets returned to positive territory yesterday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEX: ^DJI) rose 162 points, or 1.3%. Dovish commentary from a regional Fed president contributed to the gains, which were made in the face of continued concerns from the eurozone. Today, early morning Dow futures markets were relatively flat, and European markets were marginally lower in recent trading. Notable economic data released today includes May retail sales and producer prices, both released at 8:30 a.m. EDT.

Around the Dow
Up-front ad sales results out yesterday from Disney's ABC and CBS suggest lower-than-expected advertiser interest, as both companies sold roughly the same dollar amount of inventory, despite mid- to high-single-digit price increases. Particular categories of weakness were consumer packaged goods and pharmaceuticals.

Notable company events on tap for today include testimony from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon in front of a Senate banking panel. Dow component Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) hosts another business update in conjunction with its Cisco Live customer conference, with yesterday's cloud-focused presentation shifting to virtualization today. Late Monday, an OEM contract was announced between Cisco and Fusion-io (NYSE: FIO) that will see the latter's ioMemory embedded in Cisco's server. The news lifted shares of Fusion-io more than 5.5% in Tuesday trading.

Welcome to the club
Away from the Dow, PC maker Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) hosts its analyst meeting this morning, following announcements that the company will begin paying its first dividend. The $0.32 annual payout amounts to a 2.7% yield at yesterday's closing price, bringing it roughly in line with competitor and Dow component Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ). Both companies are currently reinventing themselves, placing an added focus on the enterprise IT market in recent years in response to headwinds in their core consumer-hardware businesses. Shares of both companies are down more than 15% year to date.

The Dow is loaded with companies with solid dividend payouts and highly sustainable business models built for the long haul. In our new free report introduced just this week, "The 3 Dow Stocks Dividend Investors Need," our analysts outline the three Dow stocks with an X factor that makes them stand out from their illustrious peers. This is an opportunity to be one of the first to read this feature report, so click here now to secure your copy, completely free of charge.