Investors

San Fransisco, November 7 -- EBay Inc. on Friday announced a formal settlement that is expected to end its legal battle with Skype founders and proceed with the sale of the online calling service.

Investors are always hunting for the next big stock -- the
dream stock whose price increases several times over when the
market finally discovers it. It's easy to look back and
discover the

10 best stocks of the past decade. But I'm
more interested in the tools that can help me evaluate
tomorrow's greatest companies.

"Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism,
mature on optimism, and die on euphoria. The time of maximum
pessimism is the best time to buy, and the time of maximum
optimism is the best time to sell."-- Sir John
Templeton

Based on the aggregated intelligence of 140,000-plus
investors participating in

Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community,
timberland operator
Plum Creek Timber (NYSE: PCL) has earned a
respected

four-star ranking.

Valuation is an imperfect science, but it's as important a
concept to

fantasy footballplayers as it is to investors. Ask those
who added the Giants' Hakeem Nicks off the waiver wire.
Nicks, a rookie, caught four balls for 80 yards and a
touchdown in Sunday night's 24-17 loss to the Arizona
Cardinals.

There's a reason why more than 30,000 investors flock to
Omaha each May, and millions more rummage through the
Berkshire Hathaway annual reports: Gleaning knowledge from
proven investors is one way to find

the stocks that will make you rich.

BP (NYSE: BP), the

new star of Big Oil, has kicked off the group's latest
slate of earnings. The company did a solid job of positively
surprising its shareholders and investors in general.

Based on the aggregated intelligence of 140,000-plus
investors participating in

Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community,
regional shopping mall REIT
Macerich (NYSE: MAC) has received the dreaded

one-star ranking.

When a stock's share price is lower than the mercury in a
thermometer in North Dakota in February, investors tend to
give it the cold shoulder. But as the market warms to a
stock's prospects,

its price can heat up in a hurry. Alas, you can rarely
tell that a stock is melting investors' hearts until
afterit has made that leap up.

The past year has been brutal for dividend-focused
investors. Companies that not long ago were considered
rock-solid dividend plays --
AIG (NYSE: AIG),
MBIA (NYSE: MBI), etc. -- are slashing
payouts left and right. More companies cut their dividends in
the first half of 2009 than in all of 2006 through 2008
combined. (That'd be 400 vs. 382, for the curious.)