Critics of the company blame its recent weakness to the company not having invested in remodeling its stores and to improve its customer services.

It is easy to understand where the critics are coming from. Walking into a Sears or K-Mart store just does not have the same feeling as you get when you enter into a Wal-Mart or Target store. Wal-Mart and Target understand that customers want a certain “feel” from their stores, and they deliver. Walking into a Sears and you get the feeling that the store has been there for 25 years without change (and in most cases you would be right).

The typically busy holiday shopping season was dismal for the company, and for the quarter-to-date, K-Mart stores have seen a drop in same store sales of 4.2%, while Sears stores have seen a drop of 6%.

The company stated that it had not yet decided which K-Mart and Sears stores would be closed, but that it would make the list public on its media website once the final list had been determined. It also stated that it was not sure at this point whether or not the store closings would lead to job cuts, but it is hard to imagine that the closing of 100+ stores would not lead to job cuts.

If Sears is able to absorb the criticism it has been given, and puts its focus on remodeling and vamping up its customer service then it may have a chance to get back to its glory days, but unless it is able to make serious changes, and make the quickly, then it is hard to imagine the retailer ever getting back on the same level as its major competitors.

Wall Street reacted as expected to the news, with the stock closing the session down 27.2%, down $12.47 to $33.38.

The following video on the subject is from MarketWatch:

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 raise rates next year on all types of property insurance.

Most of the damage incurred during the hurricane was flood damage, and unless you leave very near to the coast, chances are you do not have flood insurance on your property. Experts have estimated that damages due to Hurricane Irene would be around $2 billion, which is far less than the $6 billion in damages that the area experienced when Hurricane Isabel hit back in 2003.

Here is how a few insurance companies fared on the day:

• Allstate (ALL): +$2.06 to $26.30, up 8.5%
• Aetna (AET): + $0.93 to $39.16, up 2.4%
• Progressive (PGR): +$0.65 to $18.89, up 3.6%

The DOW finished the day up 2.2%, the NASDAQ was up 3.3%, and the S&P 500 was up 2.8%

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 at $0.96 per share.

In addition to posting slightly lower than expected Q3 earnings, Procter & Gamble also lowered its full year forecast as the company continues to deal with rising costs.

Run up costs in materials and fuel is forcing the company to raise its prices on several of its biggest name products including Pampers, Gillete Razors, Charmin toilet tissue, as well as Duracell batteries. Certain parts of the country will see the price increases in effect by July.

Sales were in-line with analyst estimates at $20.2 billion during the quarter.

Full the full year, the company cut its top end estimate by 5 cents to a range of $3.91 to $3.96 per share.

The stock has been severely lagging against of the overall Dow Jones average which is up around 15% over the past year. During the same period PG stock is up just 1%.

The stock initially fell following this morning’s report, but have since rebounded a bit and is currently trading up 0.4% to $64.29.

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 reason why the company had such a big loss was due to a drop in new student enrollments.

Apollo is the parent company for Pheonix University, and it is working hard to attract new students to its program. In order to attract new students, the company has been allowing students to try out their programs for free before deciding if they want to join the program full time.

In addition to allowing students a trial period, Apollo is also investing heavily into marketing itself which is also weighing on the company’s bottom line. The amount that Apollo pays to put a new student into its program has doubled over the past year to $3,200 .

Looking ahead to its full year 2011 results, Apollo now expects to see net revenue in a range of $4.65 billion to $4.75 billion. Analysts have previous forecast full year revenues of $4.69 billion.

The stock is trading down 10.2% in premarket trading.

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 the Commerce Department made a preliminary forecast of 2.8% GDP growth during the fourth quarter.

Most analysts agree that GDP has continued to grow in the first quarter, but rising oil prices over the past month will probably prevent us from seeing the same sort of growth that the economy enjoyed during the fourth quarter.

A key ingredient to the current economic recovery is consumer spending. During the final 3 months of 2010 consumer spending rose 4.0%, which is the most it has risen during a 3 month period since the fourth quarter 2006.

In reaction to the news the DOW is currently up 0.3%, the NASDAQ has gained 0.3%, and the S&P is up 0.2%.

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 stocks that rose to new 52 week highs today:

• Baidu (BIDU) closed the day up 4.3% to $132.58, up $5.49. The stock hit a new 52 week high of $133.97 earlier in the day.
• Discover Financial (DFS) closed the day up 5.3% to $23.44, up $1.19. The stock hit a new 52 week high of 23.64 earlier in the day.
• Caterpillar (CAT) closed the day down 0.03% to 106.76, down  -0.03. The stock hit a new 52 week high of 107.70 earlier in the day.

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 high of $65.38 and is currently trading down 0.4% to $64.70.

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 is surging after it raised its forecast for full year 2010 to $2.50 to $3.25 a share, up from its previous forecast of $2.50 per share.

S&P boosted its price target on the stock to $80 a share, and maintained its Buy rating on the company.

The company noted that the global economy is definitely improving, and as a result construction has been rebounding. This helped pushed the overall market higher today, with the DOW up over 25 points in afternoon trading.

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 company’s rising costs.

Total costs and expenses rose to $4.3 billion from $3.6 billion during the same period last year. Most of the increase in expenses came from hiring close to 800 new employees during the quarter.

Visit bloggingstocks for a more in depth analysis of Google’s first quarter results.

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 from the writers of CrossingWallStreet. Shares finished the day down slightly at $8.94, down 0.45%.

Technology giant Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) also rose to a new 52 week high today. Shares of the company hit a day today of $30.14. Shares of MSFT finished today trading session up 0.4% to $30.11, just three pennies off its new 52 week high.

Gold prices continue to rise, and Yamaha Gold (NYSE: AUY) has been benefiting from the recent gold rush, setting a new 52 week high earlier in the session at 13.49. After hitting another new high today, the profit takers came in and sold the stock off a bit, which ended the day slightly lower at $13.15, down 0.23%. Gold prices rose as high as 1146.5 but closed down 70 cents to 1,140.5.

What are your favorite stocks right now? Which stocks do you see rising to new highs in the near future?