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A federal jury on Wednesday awarded "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" creator Celador International more than $269 million in damages, ruling that Disney and its family of TV companies failed to "perform the obligations of the rights agreement" of their contract that brought the game show to the U.S.

The jury awarded the British producer more than $260,238,024 for revenues from the network license fee, plus $9,193,774 in revenues from merchandising.

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"We believe this verdict is fundamentally wrong and will aggressively seek to have it reversed," Disney said in a statement.

 

The rockstar debut of Tesla Motors (TSLA) has turned into a dud.

Shares of the electric-car company soared 40% on its first day and climbed higher the second. But in less than a week, the stock would come crashing down below the $17 IPO price. Wednesday, shares are in the $15 range.

"It’s a black eye for any IPO to fall so quickly below its offering price," writes The Los Angeles Times. The fast turnaround is making some wonder if the underwriting team placed the shares with flippers who wanted out quickly, Tom Petruno adds. 

It's shaping up to be a very good year for IMAX.

The company announced Wednesday that for the second quarter, its gross box office worldwide was $115 million. That's a 37% increase from last year's second-quarter box office of $84.2 million.

Though much of the box office growth can be attributed to the success of "Avatar," chief executive Richard Gelfond said that even excluding the 3-D blockbuster, per-screen average through the first six months stands at $647,000. That's a 13% increase over the prior-year period.

 

BP (BP) has been anything but charming in this oil crisis. Tony "I'd like my life back" Hayward is already in the hall of fame for CEO gaffes, and the company has been tone-deaf to frustrated investors.

That could start to change, as BP launches what one investor calls a "charm offensive" to win back the hearts of the market and partners. We know BP already has the "offensive" part nailed down. What about the charm?

Hayward is flying around the world to tell countries that it's business-as-usual for BP, The Wall Street Journal reports. He's also assuring them that BP won't sell major assets to come up with the money for its U.S. liabilities. 

By Eric Rosenbaum, TheStreet

 

On Tuesday morning, it looked as if the markets were ready to discount any negative data points, with a triple-digit gain in the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) quickly attained. The markets raced ahead even though the latest data from the Institute of Supply Management non-manufacturing index was sluggish, at best.

 

However, by the end of trading on Tuesday the big market gains had been pared back to modest levels, and the debate continued for another day as to whether investors expected a double-dip recession and would continue to de-risk their investment portfolio.

 

The ISM non-manufacturing index became the latest economic pawn of the double-dip recession debate on Tuesday. Non-manufacturing activity grew at a slower rate in June than expected, but that sluggish growth rate was the expectation of many market watchers. The dip in the ISM non-manufacturing index was greater than forecast -- to a level of 53.8 -- worse than the expected drop to 54.9 from May's reading of 55.4.

 

By Jake Lynch, TheStreet

 

Craft Brewers Alliance (HOOK), maker of Redhook, and Boston Beer Co. (SAM), seller of the Samuel Adams brands, are the best ways to play the still-escalating craft-beer revolution.

 

The S&P 500 ($INX) has fallen 7% this year. Even comparatively safe blue-chip stocks have been battered in the sell-off. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) has slumped 6%. Yet, shares of Craft Brewers Alliance have doubled and those of Boston Beer have surged 42%. Although valuations are now stretched, these beer companies still offer recession-resistant growth.

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The bullish case for Craft Brewers was outlined in last week’s Radar column. That for Boston Beer follows:

 

By Daniel Dicker, TheStreet

 

Of all the energy names that have been mercilessly hammered during the stock market's recent moderation, no group has been more beaten up than the drillers.

 

Over the last three months, the Oil Service Energy Index (OSX) is off close to 25%, while the S&P 500 ($INX) is down a bit more than 11%.

 

And it is here that perhaps the greatest opportunity lies, in a sector that has been universally sold based on the sinking of the Transocean Deepwater Horizon rig and subsequent Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

 

No secret that commodity prices have plunged on fears that global economic growth is fading. Or in the case of China, slowing from near 12% annually to something like 8% or 9%.

And no secret that the prices of commodity stocks have plunged as well. Shares of copper, gold, and molybdenum producer Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX) are down almost $30 from their April 5 high as of the close on Tuesday. That's a drop of 33% in three months.

But commodity producers, especially copper producers, are starting to talk about a actual commodity shortages in 2011 because commodity producers are responding to current low prices by slowing expansion plans or putting off opening new production completely.

 

Buying a car is not easy. Several people I know have been burned by a car salesman or the financing process, and those stories make car shopping a slightly terrifying experience.

You'd think that car buying would be a good fit with the new consumer protection agency that's part of the financial-reform bill in Congress. But no. The nation's auto dealers fought back hard, and as a result the new agency will leave them alone.

How could this happen? James Surowiecki has a nice explainer piece in the New Yorker. Auto dealers succeeded by convincing Congress that they were not part of Wall Street. Instead, they portrayed themselves as American as apple pie, and really, who could be mean to pie? 

By Scott Moritz, TheStreet

 

Talk about a heat wave.

 

With no cool-down in sales in the forecast, Apple (AAPL) is raising its iPad production for July.

 

It has ordered its Taiwan manufacturing partners to boost output to between 2.3 million and 2.35 million this month, according to a DigiTimes report.

 

By Jim Cramer, TheStreet

 

I'm down in Mexico, and wouldn't you know it, I bumped into a group of old-timers, including Benjamin Graham and David Dodd.

 

OK, not really. These investing gurus passed away more than two decades ago. But let's try to imagine such a scenario.

In my mind, we would play a round a golf. They would talk about the looming Death Cross -- the intersection formed by the 50-day moving average falling below the 200-day moving average, traditionally thought to signal a bear market -- in the S&P 500 ($INX) and how it was spooking them out of their growth positions.

 

Over on the 19th hole, while having a couple of cold Tecates, the two wise men would lament that they had to sell stocks they had bought for 50 cents that were now worth a dollar. Dodd would say "the lines had crossed -- it's all over."

 

I keep reading all the reasons the pundits give for why the economic data show we are in a recovery but the stock market is in a decline. My reason is as good as anybody's: We got the funk.

A funk is a state of depression, and that seems to be what the country has lately. Nothing seems to be going right. It's not any one reason. It's just a series of bad news reports that seem to have a cumulative effect, so we got the funk.

The housing market is in the toilet. That's the only way I can describe it. I just returned from south Florida, and news reports there say that more than 50% of the homes are "under water."

I talked to a guy who thought he had a bargain dream home that he bought just five years ago for $200K. It's 1,000 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths on a 125 x 125 foot lot. Houses in his neighborhood are all being listed for under $100K, and banks have had some short sales for between $45K and $75K. He doesn't feel good about his investment.

 

On Barchart Portfolio Blogs, I bring to your attention stocks you might want to consider for your portfolio. Every weekend I try to ignore all the headlines and conjectures and just look at the facts. Barchart is the best place to mine the data I need. I use three yard sticks because one just doesn't give me the whole picture. Let's see where we ended the week.

Value Line Index -- Contains 1700 stocks, so I think it is a better representation of the market than the narrow S&P 500 or even narrower Dow 30 -- Very ugly this week

• Sell signals on 12 of the 13 Barchart technical indicators for a 96% overall sell signal
• Down 6.32% for the week and 8.54% for the past month
• Friday closed below its 20, 50 & 100 Daily Moving Averages
• Trend Spotter sell signal
• Closed Friday at 2193.31 -- Way below its 50 Day Moving Average of 2422.33

 

We heard an extraordinary admission from Apple (AAPL) today regarding the antenna and reception problems on the new iPhone 4.

Apple gave a long-winded apology, saying it was "stunned" to discover that it completely blew the way it displayed signal bars on the phone. So to fix it, Apple is adopting a formula from AT&T (T).

How is this revelation-slash-apology sitting with Apple fans and tech observers? Not too well. 

Eric Jackson of Ironfire Capital joins us to set the facts straight regarding one of his value investments, Orient Paper (ONP).  

Jackson is confident in ONP for the long haul, and the following reasons helped him reach that conclusion:

• His visit to the company’s China headquarters, meetings with the CEO and CFO.