Despite a possible double dip recession and plummeting price action, Microsoft is one of the strongest dividend stock picks right now for the New York Stock Exchange. Although Microsoft has just about monopolized the ‘PC’ market, it faces rivaling technology through upcoming fourth generation phones, a recent innovative take on tech by their rivals Apple through their iPad and iPhone releases. Despite this ever evolving market and whether Microsoft will take any hits from these semi-related markets, they have just announced a record profits quarter for Spring 2010. Have these positive earnings turned into positive price action? No not at all, with the fear of the double dip recession markets have held back and Microsoft is no exception plummeting a whopping 20% in just 2 months. Consider these positive earnings as a kind of fail safe for future results, yes the price action in the short term has plummeted but dividend stocks are intended for long term trades; with a possible 20% gain as well as dividend profits MSFT could be a diamond in the rough for long term trades, consider the $31 cost per share of just 2 months ago. A 20% gain is very realistic over a years time between a $4-6 rise per share as a profit target. So where has the computer market been recently and where does Microsoft stand? Despite it’s record company profits the gaming industry, affecting Microsoft’s XBOX series, has seen a massive 20% profit loss in recent months but MSoft’s profits come mostly from their base computer markets where they still completely monopolize the industry. On the mobile phone side microsoft has been actively promoting their mobile windows 7 OS with mixed success. Taking a look at Microsoft’s Computer Operating Systems share over the market they make up a monopoly-like 90% of all OS’s beating out 2nd and 3rd place Linux and Mac OS’s by a huge margin. This translates into massive profits of course for Microsoft over 40 billion dollars in capital gained in their last year and record profits last quarter. With such a monopoly in OS’s throughout the every growing and evolving tech market Microsoft has set themselves up as a dominant and stable major company and player in future technology. Despite having only few responses to Apple’s other niche tech innovations they boast record profits and through a fear based ‘double dip’ recession we may just have found a bottom for this high yield dividend based stock. For more stock market news visit stock market advice forum.