The past few years have been tough times for retailer Sears Holding (SHLD). The company has been steadily losing customers to rivals Target (TGT) and Wal-Mart (WMT), and today announced that following a dismal holiday season, it has decided to close between 100 and 120 of its Sears and K-Mart stores. Critics of the company blame its recent weakness to the company not having invested in remodeling its stores and to ...

The intense media hype leading up this past weekend's Hurricane Irene spread panic up the east coast, but luckily the damage was much less than had been anticipated, which was win-win situation for insurance companies. Insurance companies win on one hand because they will have to pay out less in damages than they had anticipated, but they also win because the media hype was enough to give them an opportunity to ...

It is a big day for healthcare, with several big names reporting their quarterly earnings before today's market open. One of the companies that reported earnings this morning was Procter & Gamble (PG) which reported its fiscal third quarter results. Going into this morning earnings report, analysts had been expecting to see Procter & Gamble report earnings of $0.97 per share. Actual quarterly earnings came in a penny under analyst forecasts ...

Shares of Apollo Group (APOL) are off sharply in premarket trading after the company reported that it had swung to a loss during its fiscal second quarter. Going into this morning's earnings report, analysts had been expecting to see Apollo Group report earnings of $0.69 for its fiscal second quarter. Adjusted earnings were higher than estimates at $0.84 per share, but actual results showed a loss of $0.45 per share. The primary ...

The market is poised for another positive day as investors react to revised GDP numbers which show that the economy grew faster than previously thought at the end of last year. According to the Commerce Department, the economy grew at 3.1% during the fourth quarter, which is higher than analysts had been expecting to see. Going into today's report analysts had been expecting to see revised GDP output of 3.0%. Last month ...

It was a positive day for the stock market, and despite global turmoil the overall markets all managed to post gains on the day. The DOW closed the session up 0.56%, the NASDAQ was up 0.54% and the S&P closed the day up 0.3%. Along with an overall up market, we also saw a couple big name stocks hit new 52 week highs during the day. Here are a couple of notable ...

Lost of stocks hitting new 52 week highs today with the DOW being up 0.4%, and the NASDAQ up 0.7%. Here are a couple of the stocks that traded up to new highs today: Motorola (MOT) currently up 1.4% and hit new 52 week high of $9.05, currently trading at $9.01. Qualcomm (QCOM) currently up 1.0% to $49.94 and hit 52 week high of $49.98. Procter & Gamble (PG) hit a new 52 week ...

Strong first quarter earnings from Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) have helped pushed the market higher to start off the week. Shares of Caterpillar are up 4.5% on the day to $71.91, up $3.13 following better than expected results this morning before the market opened. Analysts were forecasting $0.39 per share, and the company easily outpaced those estimates with a reported $0.50 per share. Revenues were a bit shy of analyst estimates, but the stock ...

This afternoon after the market closed, search engine giant Google Inc. (GOOG) reported better than expected earnings for its first quarter. As we noted in our Google earnings preview, analysts had forecast earnings of $6.60 for the quarter. Google outpaced analyst earnings by posting earnings of $6.76 a share. Despite posting better than expected earnings figures, the stock traded down nearly 5% in after hours trading as investors reacted negatively to the ...

All of the major indexes closed today's session in the red, but that was not enough to keep some big name stocks from hitting new highs in today's trading action. Ford Motor (NYSE: F) hit a new 52 week high today of 9.14 before afternoon profit taking came in and pushed shares lower. The stock has been very strong lately, and recently was considered to be the stock of the year ...