A Fool Looks Back

The U.S. Department of Commerce and the European Commission gave their blessing to the partnership on Thursday. There was little doubt that it would happen. Microsoft has had its run-ins with European antitrust regulators in the past, but this is search -- a market completely dominated by Google (Nasdaq: GOOG).

Microsoft's Bing is a promising rookie, but Yahoo! continues to sink like a stone. Surrendering to the software giant obviously isn't going to help Yahoo!'s attractiveness as a bookmarked search hub. CEO Carol Bartz arrived after the testy buyout negotiations fell through, but Yahoo! shareholders would have been better served by an outright acquisition than this subsidized kowtowing.

Regulators weren't going to object to this on antitrust grounds, but how could they put up with enabling Yahoo!'s snuff film?

Briefly in the news
And now let's take a quick look at some of the other stories that shaped our week.

• NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) is Spanish for envy, phonetically speaking. Rivals may be feeling more than a little green after the video-chip giant's latest quarterly report. Revenue more than doubled, with last year's deficit transformed into a nice chunk of profit. Looking good, NVIDIA.
• Sirius XM Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) finally broke the buck. The satellite-radio operator traded above the $1 mark for the first time in 17 months.
• If Sirius XM was cheering its arrival to the left of the decimal, Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI) is wondering if it will ever get out of trading to the right side. The DVD-rental giant was slapped with an S&P credit downgrade. Don't ruin the movie for me, even if we all know how it ends.  

Until next week, I remain,

Rick Munarriz

© 2010 UCLICK L.L.C.