Top Stocks

By Alix Steel, TheStreet

 

Gold prices in New York were slipping Monday as jittery investors sold gold for cash and the euro hit a four-year low.

 

Gold for June delivery was down $2.20 to $1,225.60 an ounce at the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold has traded as high as $1,242.80 and as low as $1,222.50. The US dollar index was rising 0.5% to $86.55 while the euro was falling 0.3% to $1.23 against the dollar. The spot gold price was dropping by $6, according to Kitco's gold index. Gold prices hit a record $1,249 last week.

 

Investors are still concerned that the European Union’s $1 trillion financial aid package won’t be enough to stop the debt crisis in some member countries. They also fear that austerity measures in Greece, Spain and Portugal will hurt growth without closing budget deficits.

 

 

One Wall Street firm now asks applicants to play a few hands of poker during their job interviews, The Los Angeles Times reports.

If a person isn't interested in poker, that's almost a red flag, an executive at the firm told the newspaper. "It's almost the equivalent of not reading the Wall Street Journal."

Looks like the high-stakes gambling aspect of Wall Street isn't going away anytime soon. 

Investors in Blockbuster (BBI) are playing Russian roulette, and one of these days the gun is going to go off.

 

In a recent securities filing, Blockbuster stated that filing bankruptcy remained a possibility. If that happens, investors will likely lose the entirety of their current investments.

• Blockbuster and Netflix fight for Movie Gallery share

Today the company has a market capitalization of $83 million, so there's not much left to lose. But individuals are still rolling the dice on Blockbuster at 40 cents per share -- down from $4 and change three years ago -- even though a complete loss is quote possible.

 

How much rope will investors give this company?

 

People with bad credit still need to buy cars. And General Motors wants to sell to them -- if only its lender would chill out a little.

Subprime buyers received about 16% of all new vehicle loans in the fourth quarter of last year, The Associated Press reports. The auto industry depends on these people for its sales, and it needs the banks to give them loans.

GM wants to sell to more subprime buyers as it revs up for a new public stock offering. But its main lender, Ally Financial, doesn't like the risk of loaning money to people with poor credit. So GM is stuck. 

Gold's one of those commodities that enable me to join the bears without compromising my opportunist philosophy. By saying that gold is going to $2,000, as I have on "Mad Money," I am never going to be wrong.

 

I am not wrong today, for example, even though gold is down, because that's an opportunity. When you get a dip in gold, you can say "buy!" When you have a huge sell-off, you can be more bullish. When you have a run, you can take credit. It is a joyful position.

And here are the reasons:

 

 

Although stocks ended the week higher, the bears unleashed a barrage of artillery fire on Friday as all the good feelings from last weekend's European bailout gave way to renewed worries over the future of the eurozone.

 

Stocks dropped, the bond market was pressured, the euro plunged, and the dollar rose. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 162 points or 1.5%, capping a two-day loss of 3.2%.

 

Last week, I wrote that it was likely we would see another large decline before a sustained rebound rally got underway. We obviously got that this week. But now, there are a few glimmers of hope to lighten what was otherwise a dark and dreadful session.

 

Given the mood of the market right now, Middleby's (MIDD) earnings report Wednesday was a perfect storm of bad news. 

The supplier of commercial food service and food processing equipment missed Wall Street earnings estimates for the first quarter by eight cents a share and revenue fell by 11.5% from the first quarter of 2009.

And nobody wanted to hear a word of explanation. The stock fell on the news by 6.4% on Thursday.

 

Gotta give Google (GOOG) credit for trying, but in the end its attempt to disrupt the wireless industry fell flat.

The company is closing the online store it opened in January to sell the Nexus One phone. The idea was revolutionary: Customers would buy the phone directly from Google's online store, instead of the traditional route of going through a carrier first.

You could buy the Nexus One for $179 with a two-year plan with T-Mobile, or buy an unlocked version for $529. The future that Google envisioned was one where customers could buy any phone they wanted and then take it to their favorite carrier for service. 

Greece's debt woes and their spillover into other parts of Europe have been bad news for the euro, with the currency plummeting toward levels it hasn't seen in four years. And the pain is spilling over into the U.S. markets, hitting the major indices hard. 

 

But once the initial fears subside, will Europe's troubles, and the euro's accompanying plunge, be bad news for stock investors going forward? Not necessarily. For one thing, the recent crisis has hammered European stocks -- including those of many solid, stable companies that are now selling at bargain prices.

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For another, the euro's decline may actually help European companies that have substantial global operations, or that are major exporters. 

 

TiVo (TIVO) investors are overreacting just a little, don't you think?

Shares of the company have fallen more than 40% Friday after TiVo lost a round in court against Dish Network (DISH) and EchoStar (SATS). Now, those two companies have been given the green light to make their case again in court.

Basically, the issue revolves around whether Dish and EchoStar are using digital video recording technology that TiVo has patented. A previous court said in March that the two companies were guilty -- and TiVo shares jumped in response. 

After years of forcing customers into long-term contracts, major U.S. wireless companies are finally relenting.

They're allowing more customers to go without contracts, The Wall Street Journal reports. They're embracing prepaid services and charging by the minute.

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Sprint (S), for example, says it will only charge 7 cents a minute for some of its plans. That's about half what prepaid king TracFone Wireless charges. Even Verizon (VZ), which resisted for a long time, is starting to move into the business.

 

There's a lot of uncertainty in the oil industry right now as the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster continues to wreak political, environmental and economic havoc. BP (BP) has seen its stock dive 18% in the last month, and the rest of the sector has been fighting against the fallout as well.

 

But not all energy stocks are a bust. There's one oil stock that is up over 11% in the last 30 days -- and on top of this share appreciation, it boasts a stunning dividend yield of 12.6%.

 

 

First, let's get one thing straight: A stock split does NOT change the underlying value of a company. It's simply a repackaging. For instance, instead of selling 10 whole pies for $10 each, you cut each pie into 10 pieces and sell them for $1 each. Either way, you have $100 worth of assets.

 

So why in the world did Baidu (BIDU) get a hefty boost in share price simply from dividing its $700 shares into 10 smaller, $70 pieces?

 

Nobody can really say for sure. The answer probably involves a complicated mix of investor psychology and differences in liquidity and trading volume now that 10 times the shares are on the market. But the real question many investors should ask