Top Stocks

California is moving to become the first state to ban plastic bags at grocers and drugstores. The goal, according to the Associated Press, is to slow the flood of plastic bags into landfills, oceans and rivers.

This is a growing trend nationwide. Cities across the country are quashing plastic bags in hopes that people will bring their own reusable bags when they shop.

Just for fun, I thought I'd look up which stocks might be affected by this movement. Here are some of the largest makers of plastic bags and polyethylene resins, according to the American Chemistry Council: 

Public opinion is turning against Warren Buffett.

The billionaire investor is getting raked over the coals this week after defending credit ratings agencies like Moody's, saying that lots of people -- himself included -- did not expect the economy to implode.

• Looking for a better broker?

"The entire American public was caught up in a belief that housing prices could not fall dramatically," he told a panel looking into the financial meltdown, according to The Associated Press.

 

By Jim Cramer, TheStreet

 

Why isn't some hedge fund, or some group of hedge funds, out there trying to crack the euro? Or is there one – or several – and the euro has hit a floor now that there are so many more bears than bulls on it?

 

A very complex and difficult dynamic out there has suddenly shifted, allowing us to think about individual stocks again. Oil has bottomed – thanks for that great call Dan Dicker – at $70. The economic data in this country has been unbelievably strong, as Doug Kass points out, and the possibility of a terrific employment number on Friday still exists, stoked by President Obama's words Wednesday. The Chinese stock market seems to have stopped going down, and weaker numbers from China are now being viewed positively as a sign of a soft landing – although that view has not been articulated on TV yet, other than on my "Mad Money" show.

 

So we have a barometer of economic strength – oil – saying things aren't so bad, and we have a major economy that gets better and better.

 

Political risk moves stock markets. 

Investors are getting a reminder of that from Japan, where the resignation of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has sent the yen falling against all but one of the world's most traded currencies. The Nikkei 225 stock index is down more than 1%. 

And they're likely to get another refresher in coming weeks from Spain, where the government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is struggling to stay in power.

 

AT&T (T) is changing the pricing on data plans for the iPhone, the iPad, and other devices -- and some think that other wireless providers will follow suit.

Starting Monday, AT&T customers will no longer get unlimited Internet access for a set monthly price. Instead, they'ill pay either $15 a month for 200 megabytes of data or $25 a month for 2 gigabytes. Try to imagine 200 megabytes as the equivalent of about 400 photos, according to USA Today.

Customers can still go over that limit, they'll just pay more depending on how much data they use. The company says that 98% of customers use less than 2 GB. Previously, iPhone customers paid $30 a month for unlimited data. 

Shares of Walgreen (WAG) were up 2.5% Wednesday to $32.82 on news that the company will start selling wine and beer again.

It's about time. Rivals CVS Caremark (CVS) and Rite Aid (RAD) sell wine and beer in many locations. Without those items, Walgreen became more of a drugstore and less of an all-around general store.

• Check out MSN Money's Mortgage Loan Center

Analysts are applauding the move, saying it will help Walgreen recover some of the sales it lost in the recession. Sales at the front end of Walgreen stores dropped 2.6% in April, The Wall Street Journal reports.

 

One news story has really hit the trifecta of poor taste this week.

First, you have the woman whose ego is so colossal that she thinks she was fired from Citigroup (C) for being too hot. Next, there's a crazy 20-picture photo spread in the Village Voice to prove that she is indeed smoking (and yes, she is).

• Dress for success with a better broker

Finally, there's her inevitable lawsuit against the bank, in which she claims her bosses couldn't concentrate because of her hotness and banned her from wearing turtlenecks, pencil skirts, 3-inch heels or fitted business suits. (What's left, a muumuu?)

 

This post comes from The Big Money's Matthew DeBord.

 

Is car-sharing about to have its market moment? So it would seem, as Zipcar, the country’s best-known car-sharing service (and the world’s largest) filed for an IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday.

 

The Cambridge, Mass., company’s modest goal is to take what was once a stalwart of crunchy, Northeastern hippie culture (it reportedly got its start with a single VW bug), raise $75 million and position itself among the dominant players in an industry that could be worth billions. 

 

Or an industry that could never find its momentum.

 

By Jim Cramer, TheStreet

 

The market mocks us daily. With Europe and oil both coming down, we want the futures to come down with them. After Tuesday's brutal session -- when a ton of money went to work and then disappeared in the ether -- we don't need to be skunked again.

 

So what do the futures know? That the last half hour was "phony" as I have been saying? That we can ignore Europe, as it is simply catching up to our downside? That Tuesday’s banking and tech gains can override the weakness in Banco Santander and BBVA (BBVA)? That the euro seems to have a hard time going through 122, perhaps because of central bank buying? That China didn't go down or that the Aussie mining tax is going to be less onerous than we thought?

 

You add these up and I think you get nothing, nothing that is worth keeping stocks for. Remember, we need to see a number of things happen for a solid move up.

 

As cleanup costs mount and with no end in sight to the undersea oil gusher in the gulf, investors have started to take a hard look at the reality at the disaster’s impact on BP (BP). The company has shed more than $70 billion in value since April 20 when an explosion on one of its oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico sparked the worst crude oil disaster in U.S. history.

Some say that things could get even worse as the blowout on the ocean floor continues to wreak havoc and the price tag continues to mount. But many others say the sell-off is overdone, and that investors would be wise to buy shares at what could be bargain valuations.

Yet another possibility is a buyout by one of BP’s bigger oil rivals – and here’s who would be the most likely suitors:

 

Motorola (MOT) has been one of those stocks that investors love to kick around. It peaked at almost $60 a share during the tech bubble days of 2000, slumped to $20 a share in 2006 amid increased competition from smartphones, and bottomed out at about $3 a share in March of 2009.

 

But Motorola has staged a comeback. The stock has almost doubled in the last year and a half with all the  buzz behind its Google (GOOG) powered Droid handset. What’s more a recent ChangeWave smartphone survey shows Motorola now ranking #2 among “very satisfied” customers -- only trailing Apple (APPL) and its vaunted iPhone. But will this mean continued success for the stock?

 

Want to own part of a car-sharing service? Here's your chance, as Zipcar prepares for an initial public offering.

The idea behind Zipcar is simple: Members can reserve one of the company's cars by the hour or day. The reservation includes gas and insurance.

The company has 400,000 members, and 7,000 cars for them to use. But is the stock a buy? Let's get into the numbers: 

Foreclosures are clogging the system so much now that the average borrower doesn't get evicted until 438 days of delinquency.

That's up from 251 days in January 2008, The New York Times reports. About 1.7 million U.S. households are in foreclosure.

• MSN Money's Mortgage Loan Center

There are a few reasons for the delay. First is sheer volume -- banks just can't process all the foreclosures on time. Also, legal challenges are becoming more common. Finally, the government is pressuring lenders to provide modifications and delay foreclosures.

 

The headline pretty much says it all: What do we do to BP (BP)?  

The financial sector has been a strange double-edged sword in portfolios over the last two years or so. In the wake of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, billions of wealth was erased in what were long thought of as conservative stocks. Then the resurgence of some banks since the lows of last year made other investors a fortune, with Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC) both soaring about 300% since historic lows on March 9, 2009.  

 

The drama continues in the financial sector even now with the endless see-saw of mortgage default news and the continued worries over sovereign debt in the euro zone. Any investor jumping into financial stocks right now is really taking the tiger by the tail – but if you do your homework, there a number of opportunities in the sector become clear -- particularly among financials in Latin America.

 

Here are three: