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Research In Motion's (RIMM) shares dropped 21% Friday to $27.87. Who could have imagined that this stock would fall below $30?

Not long ago, it seemed the company could do no wrong. Its BlackBerry device was a must-have for business and a status symbol for executives. RIM had the business world in its palm.

But the company and its stock has been on a devastating downward spiral, punctuated by disappointing quarterly earnings like the report we saw Thursday (Charley Blaine has the gory details here).

And now, even some of RIM's top investors are publicly bashing the company. 

Investors have suffered a crisis of confidence over the past few weeks as all the negative factors I started discussing in my columns and blogs months ago -- the eurozone crisis, inflationary pressure, high gas prices and Japan's supply-chain problems -- replaced an air of confidence and optimism with fear and  distrust.

 

As a result, by some measures, stocks fell to their most oversold levels since 1999, as I discussed in my most recent blog post. And then they continued falling.

 

But now it appears that the turn I've been writing about is finally at hand as the economic fundamentals improve and bargain-hunters enter the fray. You could see this in Friday's report on leading economic indicators, which jumped more than expected, thanks to an increase in the yield curve (the subject of my previous column), consumer expectations and permits for new housing. And you can see it in the way bullish investors have initiated new uptrends in solid companies like United Technologies (UTX) and Kraft (KFT) by bidding shares up and over their 18-day moving averages.

 

This is just the start.

 

Now I've heard everything. The website Angie's List is preparing to file in August for an initial public offering, Bloomberg reports.

The website publishes consumer reviews about plumbers, roofers, mechanics and other service providers and charges users a membership fee. In the Phoenix market, for example, the fee is $39 for one year. The company also gets revenue from advertising.

Perhaps I shouldn't dismiss Angie's List at first glance. Perhaps the company has huge plans that warrant an IPO. We'll know more when it files its paperwork to go public. The company has picked Bank of America (BAC) to lead the IPO, Bloomberg reports.  

Harry Potter fans are abuzz about a new website, Pottermore.com, that hints at a new project from author J.K. Rowling. The website shows two owls on a pink background and links to a YouTube site counting down the days until the June 23 announcement.

What's next for Harry Potter? Rowling's people say it's definitely not a new book. An editor at the Harry Potter news site HPANA got a sneak preview of Pottermore and said it's "breathtaking in scope, detail and sheer beauty."

Check out this video report about the mysterious new site and what it means for Harry Potter fans.

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By Rick Aristotle Munarriz

 

Stupidity is contagious. It gets us all from time to time. Even respectable companies can catch it. Let's take a look at five dumb financial events this week that may make your head spin.

 

1. Underwriters do a little overwriting
Shares of Boingo Wireless (WIFI) surged 32% higher on Monday, after four analysts chimed in with bullish opinions.

 

Wait a minute. Weren't these the same four analysts that took the Wi-Fi hot-spot operator public at $13.50 just a month ago? Oh, they were.

 

Despite its profitability and slow yet determined growth, shares of Boingo Wireless were smacked down to $7.65 before Monday's orchestrated CPR session. There's nothing dumb about standing behind the poorly received stock that these four analysts helped take public, but why did Pacific Crest issue a price target of $13?

 

By Don Dion, TheStreet

 

This weekend I'll get to rub elbows with the one and only Warren Buffett when I head to Las Vegas to attend a NetJets-sponsored poker tournament.

 

So far, 2011 has proved an interesting and controversial year for Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.A) fractional jet ownership company, and there's a good chance the Oracle of Omaha will use the event to ease tensions and restore customer confidence in the company.

 

Since Berkshire initially acquired NetJets in 1998, the company has been a tricky investment. As Buffett noted in his 2010 Berkshire letter to shareholders, "Even though NetJets was consistently a runaway winner with customers, our financial results, since its acquisition in 1998, were a failure."

 

By Jeff Reeves, Editor, InvestorPlace.com

Bankrate (RATE) made its big debut on Wall Street on Friday morning, raising about $187.5 million in its IPO. The offering was priced at $15 a share.

 

But as with other IPOs lately, the initial price didn't hold. In early trading, Bankrate had slumped as low as $14.10 a share.

 

What makes Bankrate interesting, however, is that unlike other recent offerings, it didn't even get the hoopla of a big bounce right out of the gate. That bodes very ill for upcoming 2011 IPOs that could include Dunkin' Donuts, Groupon and Facebook.

 

Let's look back at some of the biggest recent offerings to show you what I mean.

 

We're not seeing the stories yet. The stories that say, "Gasoline has come down so much that people are going out more again." We didn't see them in 2008 either.

 

But it happened. And judging by the violence of the move down coupled with the charts being horrendous for crude and the soon-to-be-toppled Moammar Ghadafi, you are going to be getting that good feeling real soon. I had thought my $90-a-barrel price target was a stretch when we got to $110, but I am now thinking that looks too high!

 

It took about three months from oil's outrageous peak to its hideous trough in 2008 before we saw a spending rebound -- and remember, that was during a period of heavy layoffs. You still saw spending go up, principally because the oil "tax" on consumers eased.

 

 

Redbox, owned by Coinstar (CSTR), is beating Netflix (NFLX) to the video-game punch.

Starting Friday, the company will begin renting video games at 21,000 stores across the United States, the Associated Press reports. The games will rent for $1.50 a day. Redbox already charges $1 to $2 to rent DVD movies for a day.

Redbox has been testing video-game rentals since 2009. The move gives the company an advantage over Netflix, which doesn't rent video games. Some of the games available at Redbox will include "Call of Duty: Black Ops" and "LA Noire." 

I totally understand if a chief executive uses the corporate jet for personal trips once in a while. These people still do company business while in flight, and hey, that's a perk of the job.

But when half of a company jet's hours are devoted to vacations for the top bosses and these guys don't have to pay a dime -- well, that veers quickly into questionable territory.

The Wall Street Journal reviewed the flight records of dozens of corporate jets over a four-year period, and found that sometimes, more than 50% of their trips were to or from resort destinations -- usually locations where executives owned homes.

Companies are supposed to disclose all that travel time to shareholders, but they don't. Take the case of computer-storage company EMC (EMC), which has five company jets.  

By Rick Aristotle Munarriz

 

Shares of Best Buy (BBY) rose nearly 5% Tuesday after the consumer electronics retailer posted better-than-expected​ quarterly results. The company is pretty popular around Fooldom. Several of our newsletter services like it. Fellow Fool Alyce Lomax feels that "value-minded investors should give the electronics retailer props" after the report.

 

I have to respectfully disagree. Best Buy may not be the second coming -- and going -- of Circuit City, but the chain has nonetheless peaked.

 

Let's go over the reasons I think buyers are running into a burning building.

 

By Olivia Oran, TheStreet

 

With one of the world's best track records when it comes to the ability to remake itself time and time again, IBM (IBM) celebrates its centennial on Thursday, joining a list of iconic American stocks like Colgate (CL), John Deere (DE) and Tiffany & Co. (TIF) that have all out-gunned countless competitors and economic cycles to reach 100 years of age.

 

Though this type of lasting power inevitably has, at times, colored IBM as stodgy, slow-growing and unexciting -- especially in a sector where many investors crave a continuous stream of new consumer gadgets -- Big Blue has repeatedly reconquered tech with its own world-changing brand of innovation.

 

So who in tech is in for the next 100 years?

 

Obvious answers from our sources include Apple (AAPL) -- whose ability to innovate in consumer electronics is viewed as virtually untouchable -- and Google (GOOG), thanks to its significant investment in efficient data centers and sustainability (not, as you might think, its core search business).