Pulling the Plug on Best Buy, 3 Yield Ideas for the Week

Zacks.com submits: Amazon.com (AMZN) reported first quarter earnings that beat the Zacks Consensus by 6.45%. The positive earnings surprise was less than in prior quarters, as estimates were already adjusted to reflect pre-recession type growth.

Zacks.com submits: On June 22, Carnival Corp. (CCL) reported fiscal 2010 second quarter earnings of 32 cents per share, which slightly exceeded the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 30 cents but dipped from the year-earlier earnings by a penny.

I'll admit that until I looked into this last week, I thought that the Gallup poll suggesting that the deficit had become a top concern was a fairly conventional result. But as Ben Somberg notes, that's not the case: Jobs and unemployment are well ahead of the deficit in most polls.

Zacks.com submits: Big Lots Inc. (BIG), which operates as a broad line closeout retailer in the United States, posted better-than-expected first-quarter 2010 results on May 27, 2010, buoyed by strong sales and effective inventory management, prompting management to raise the outlook.

Mark Krieger submits:When Baidu (BIDU) reports second quarter results next week, Wall Street will be looking for the moon. Earnings are expected to nearly double form .76 to $1.51 while revenues are slated to rise 51% from $119 million to $180 million.

Alexander Wissel submits:Starbucks' announcement that it will start issuing quarterly dividends and buy back an additional 15 million shares was greeted with a relative yawn from the market today. Here’s why investors should ignore the street and take this as a shot – of espresso – to add to their income portfolios. We’ve been positive on Starbucks Corporation (SBUX) for quite some time now.

John Judis gets hypothetically optimistic:

A point I’ve been wanting to make about the coming midterm elections is that a lot of commentators seem to me to be operating with a misleading implicit model of how these things work. The way they see it, the status quo in any given pre-election House is a kind of equilibrium, and moving the House off that equilibrium requires force. Since the Democrats currently have a large majority, it follows that to move from a large Democratic majority to parity would require an enormous amount of force.