aapl

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), the famous maker of printers and PCs, and a colleague of entities such as Microsoft (MSFT), Dell (DELL), and International Business Machines (IBM), issued Q4 results on Monday after the end of the trading day. Revenues didn't impress me, as sales saw a decline of 8%. Net income, however, was better. On an adjusted basis, earnings per share increased 11% to $1.14.

Also doing well was the operating margin. The adjusted metric increased 170 basis points during the quarter. The annual statement of cash flows should look good to any long-term shareholder. Management still had cash left over from operations after share repurchases, dividend obligations, and capital spending.

The Street.com's Jim Cramer says that OPEC may take oil out of the equity-market equation and make stock-picking matter again.

If OPEC says it likes an oil price in the $75-78 range, as it said today, we could be looking at a nirvana moment for stocks. We know that any time oil bounces, the S&P 500 futures go up. Any time it goes down, the S&P futures go down. But if OPEC wants to keep it right here, we take oil out of the equation and make stock-picking matter again.

Right now, the Saudis are telling the big oil-shipping companies that they want to bring 1 million barrels a day into the market straight away to keep oil below $80. That can be used to overwhelm the speculators who are tying up as much as 20% of the oil fleet in the world to keep oil off the market and buoy its price. But they will not bring the oil to the market below $75.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says that as numerous stories are mulled over anew, the reasons for selling seem silly.

The lack of important data today forces market participants to revisit stories that got tossed out over the last few weeks simply because of earnings ennui. People are now doubling back to see what they have forgotten, or more important, why they sold certain stocks they most likely shouldn't have.

For example, why did JPMorgan (JPM) (Cramer's Take) go from $47 to $44? Bad loans? Credit quality? No, not really. Nothing like that. Why did Goldman Sachs (GS) (Cramer's Take) go from $192 to the $170s? Some of it was Meredith Whitney, but there is also a sense of entitlement that makes the firm hated, as if somehow it is too much of a pariah to invest in.

It's not the first time this happened, and likely not the last. The European Commission has objected to Oracle's (ORCL) acquisition of Sun Microsystems (JAVA) after U.S. authorities have approve the $7.4 billion deal.

The issue is Sun's database product, MySQL, which European antitrust authorities fear wouldn't be developed after the acquisition since Oracle has its own database and therefore it would hurt competition in the database business. Together, the two will have quite a large share of the market, the EU contends. The U.S. authorities disagrees, saying there are enough competitors in the market and that "the merger is unlikely to be anticompetitive."

Neither company is saying a thing yet, but word is Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) and EMC (NYSE: EMC) are joining up to sell a new collection of products designed to deliver cloud computing capabilities, Reuters reports. Called vBlock, the cloud solution is intended to help the companies compete more effectively with IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ).

The partnership, which no one is admitting to, involves a joint venture between Cisco and EMC that will sell vBlock. The former will supply the networking equipment and servers, with the latter kicking in the storage gear and virtualization technology through its VMWare (NYSE: VMW) subsidiary. The joint venture will put the systems together, integrate the components for clients, and make the whole pile of cables and silicon work. A formal announcement is expected next week.

In an era in which employers increasingly are having to shift more health-care costs onto employees, IBM (NYSE: IBM) is taking the unprecedented tack of opting to pick up all expenses related to primary care for U.S.-based employees, beginning next year. In doing so, IBM is is among the first U.S. companies to cover primary care at 100%, the Armonk, N.Y.-based computing giant said Thursday.

The move means employees will not be subject to co-pays or deductibles for in-network primary care with their internist, general or family practitioner, pediatrician or primary osteopath. IBM said it was able to boost coverage due to the company's success in implementing wellness programs, an effort begun five years ago.

Your e-mail account is a goldmine. Technology companies push hard to keep your data secure, but there are plenty of scumbags out there who always seem to find a new way to gain an edge over the guys in white hats. Phishers, in particular, are eager to find new ways to profit from your identity and information, and they're getting some new tricks.

Phishing scam activity was quiet at the beginning of this year, according to a report in USA Today, but these attacks surged 200% from May through September, says the X-Force team at IBM (NYSE: IBM). Webmail, social media and gaming accounts are their primary targets. E-mail access, in particular, is highly sought after, since they can be use to push out spam ... while bypassing filters.

These "virgin" e-mail accounts command top dollar: a digital criminal can pick up as much as $2 for a clean account from Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows Live, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Gmail, Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) YahooMail or AOL (NYSE: TWX). This is more than twice the amount typically paid for a stolen credit card account, according to Fred Rica, principal in the security practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Many webmail users actually do half the criminals' job for them, with 33% using just one password online and 48% using only a handful.

In uncertain times, it goes without saying that investors should stick with 'the known, and the true,' which is why I'm reiterating my Buy rating for Big Blue -- International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM), first recommended on February 18, 2009 at a price of $91.51. If you bought IBM in February, you're up about 35%.

Just about everything is running in IBM's favor right now: look for a mid-single-digit revenue gain for IBM in FY2009 on stronger services division and software division revenue.

Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) will be reporting Q3 data after the bell today. Is the market excited over the Internet portal's prospects? Well, judging by the price action I'm seeing on my screen right now, I'd have to say the answer is a definite no. The stock is down 1.7% as I write this in early afternoon trading.

According to Earnings.com, Yahoo!, whose colleagues include Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), is expected to say it made 7 cents per share in the third quarter. That won't be so great, since it will represent an earnings decline compared to last year's income stat. Of course, we should remember that it won't be just about the earnings per share. We'll have to hear what management has to say about future prospects.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says that from a chart perspective, this could be about the greatest bull market in history.

Chart to chart to chart this weekend and all I see, except for a couple of health maintenance, medical device and drug companies plus some fertilizer stocks, is just a remarkable and, yes, unheralded run in every single group.

Some of them are of the pure recovery style: every oil and gas, now including refinery, as the crude price inches back to $100 and natural gas has started its way back up; the life insurers that were left for dead when we decided that all commercial mortgages would be destroyed taking them with the bad loans; the overly-indebted companies like Textron (NYSE: TXT) (Cramer's Take) that have roared back without any real support from anyone.

But others are just monumental. Anything paper or wood or glass. These aren't quitting.

Since the stock market bottomed in March of this year, it has been firing on all cylinders -- except for those in the auto industry who manufacture the most cylinders of course. This year has not been kind to them.

For months, many have been surprised at the rapid rise, given the level of unemployment. During this same period, Wall Streeters have been dancing up and down, looking forward to more bonuses.

As the number of unemployed has climbed and the period of same has lengthened, many have wondered how business could be improving during a time when the consumer (those still left) has transformed from spender to saver.

Here are some highlights from last week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) higher Q3 earnings topped expectations but revenue was in line.
• Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) posted better-than-expected Q3 results, but shares sold off.
• Allegheny Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ATI) was downgraded on concerns about its Q4 guidance.
• Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) shares fell after it posted a deeper-than-expected quarterly loss.
• Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) fell victim to profit taking despite reporting better-than-expected earnings.
• CSX Corp. (NYSE: CSX) better-than-expected Q3 earnings sent shares higher, despite a decline in revenue.

Raj Rajaratnam's life has just changed profoundly. The 52-year-old founder, fund manager, and partner at the Galleon Group has been accused of insider trading, conspiring with others (now named as defendants with him) to trade shares of Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Hilton (OTC: HLNQ), and Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA), among others. Rajaratnam generated $25 million in profits on these trades, but that's moot now.

Rajaratnam, who is #559 on the list of the world's richest people, with a net worth of $1.3 billion, now faces fines of up to $250,000 and from 5 to 20 years in prison. I doubt he'll be in the same slot on next year's list of billionaires.

For the past 48 hours people have been asking me if I thought the market would pull back after the Dow Jones Industrial Average surpassed the milestone of 10,000. Business journalist's and guru's alike have suggested that there might be some profit taking or "selling into strength" and the recent highs would not hold.

As the market proved yesterday, up about a half percent across the board, with the Dow closing at 10,062.94, up 47.08 in last-minute buying -- that is just a lot of noise.

U.S. stock futures were mixed and barely moved Friday morning after Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) beat analyst estimates late Thursday and as results came in this morning from General Electric (NYSE: GE) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), with the first also surpassing Wall Street expectations. [Update 8:45 a.m.: Futures turned negative after the large Dow companies didn't perform quite as well.]

The Dow Jones Industrial Average managed to close above the 10,000 mark Thursday, for the second day in a row, despite earlier weakness following some financial sector results. But a jump in oil prices helped oil stocks move higher and the Dow maintain that important psychological mark.