For the three months ended May 30, Adobe, the company which makes Photoshop design software and the Acrobat publishing tool, reported net income of $214.9 million, or 40 cents a share, compared with $152.5 million, or 25 cents a share, in the same quarter a year ago.

In a conference call on Monday with investors, Kenneth D. Lewis, the chief executive of Bank of America, confirmed his commitment to the Countrywide buyout, which is expected to close by the end of September.

Japan's Nikkei average rose 1.6 percent on Friday, with exporters such as Canon Inc buoyed by a weaker Yen and optimism over the U.S. economy after surprisingly strong figures on jobs and retail sales.

Oil prices dropped below $124 a barrel Wednesday in Asia as demand concerns deepened and after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke indicated that more U.S. interest rate cuts are unlikely.

Yahoo Inc Chief Executive Jerry Yang said that a potential deal with Microsoft has tremendous power, but the software giant appears no longer interested in a full merger. He ordered up a draft press release rejecting a Microsoft Corp takeover bid months before January's unsolicited bid, company documents unsealed on Monday show.

JP Morgan Chase completed its historic bid for Bear Stearns , effectively closing one of the more dismal chapters in the annals of Wall Street.
Now, the Street's attention turns to what JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon will do for an encore.

This article's swaggering headline smacks of exaggeration -- but it's true.

How it happened
Picture it: New Jersey, 1995. Although not then a Motley Fool employee, I was, perhaps like you, an avid reader of Fool.com. Founding brothers David and Tom Gardner occasionally recommended stocks, and one of their recommendations was an online service provider, America Online.

It's true what they say: Youth is wasted on the young.

I'm not going to get all sentimental about how responsibilities are nil and possibilities are endless. No, the real waste is the time young folks have to compound their money.

My nine-year-old car has banged-up hubcaps. Whenever I pass some spiffy new car with gleaming, fancy wheels that must have cost the owner at least $4,000, I think to myself: "That's enough for a Roth IRA contribution. I wonder whether that person made one."

There's no arguing that, financially, twosomes have a leg up on their single competition.

Couples get price breaks on insurance premiums, save money by splitting the cable and electric bills, and have built-in justification for buying the family-sized bag of chips. Scoring the best interest rates on big loans (to buy homes and cars) is more of a snap, too, since dynamic duos have two credit scores from which to choose.

Sorry to disappoint you, Fools: However much you may imagine it, dividend checks don't make a ka-ching sound when they land in your account. There's no jackpot siren or shower of rainbow confetti, either.