Anxious Market Still Stuck
Robert Holmes

Stocks meandered early Friday as Microsoft's earnings did little to relieve the anxiety that built through the previous session's selloff.
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Microsoft Keeps Them Guessing
Ronna Abramson

It's only fitting that a wildly uneven earnings season in the technology sector should near its close with Microsoft beating first-quarter earnings estimates while also forecasting soft sales. The mixed performance left Wall Street nonplussed Friday. The stock traded lower in a single-percentage point range overnight and last changed hands on Instinet at $24.72, down 13 cents. Still, investors are probably glad for a measured reaction given the panic that followed earlier disappointments at Amazon and eBay.
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Price Pinch Zaps Zimmer
Melissa Davis

After years of pleasing spoiled investors, Zimmer now finds itself battling just to relieve its followers instead. Suddenly, just beating profit expectations is no longer enough. After all, Zimmer did just that late Wednesday and still saw its shares slip Thursday, continuing a slide that began in early September. That's around the time when Zimmer CEO Ray Elliott started spooking investors with candid discussions about price cuts for orthopedic implants. Since then, Wall Street has focused on very little else.


Rogers Discussed Selling Funds' Stake to Refco
Matthew Goldstein

Investors in two of Jim Rogers' commodity funds who feel sideswiped by the Refco scandal might want to take another look at their famous manager when considering whom to blame. Rogers, who became a media star in the 1990s by dishing out investing advice on television, held talks with the since-collapsed New York brokerage about purchasing a stake in his management company just weeks before Refco was laid low by scandal, sources told TheStreet.com.

The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street
Colin Barr

They really drive a hard bargain at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. The lifestyle outfit got hammered Thursday after its latest pathetic quarterly performance. The publishing and merchandising company posted a third- quarter loss of $26 million on revenue of $40 million, and told analysts it expects, at best, a break-even fourth quarter where Wall Street was projecting a healthy profit. But that's not the worst of it. No, Martha Stewart Living revealed that the latest-quarter loss included an $11 million charge related to the vesting of certain warrants granted in connection with the airing of NBC's The Apprentice: Martha Stewart.

Daily Investing Tip
Looking Abroad for Bonds

U.S. Treasury bonds are often considered the safest investment in the world. But right now fixed-income investors may find better bargains abroad. Since the start of September, interest rates on U.S. Treasuries have spiraled higher, sending prices lower. And considering the pick-up in inflation this fall as reflected in the CPI, as well as the Fed's hiking agenda, it is getting harder to know when there will be a turnaround for Uncle Sam's IOUs. Instead of waiting around for Treasuries to become cheap, Julius Baer manager Don Quigley says investors may want to check out German and Mexican bonds.
-- Gregg Greenberg, TheStreet.com



Jeff Cooper
Midpoint of a Leg Down?
A weekly close below 1176 S&P could indicate an even bigger move looms.

Dick Arms
No Reason to Buy in This Market
In a market that's still acting weak, more neutral Arms Index readings aren't reason enough to get long.