Services

By Colleen Paulson:

Is The Children's Place (Nasdaq: PLCE) once more becoming The Investor's Place? Its stock price jumped more than 15% in initial trading, after its first-quarter earnings report beat analysts' earnings estimates.

In a terrific article back in February, Fool Sham Gad outlined the power of share buybacks to create value. He pointed to NVR (NYSE: NVR) and Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: BNI) as two canny capital allocators. I'd like to regale you with a tale of another regal repurchaser.

By Timothy M. Otte:

Retail is looking like a feast-or-famine game these days. On the famine side, companies selling discretionary items, like Kohl's (NYSE: KSS) and J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP), are having a tough time luring cash-strapped consumers into their stores. But for companies that sell staple items at value prices -- like wholesale club operator BJ's (NYSE: BJ) -- the feast is on.

XM Satellite Radio (Nasdaq: XMSR) may not be able to get around the regulatory gridlock at the FCC, but it can help you get around traffic gridlock.

On Monday, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) opened up its AdSense system to third-party "advertising tags." While casual observers may shrug, this change could bring fresh revenue into Big G's bank accounts.

Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for fee?

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) has abandoned plans to buy Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO), for now, but it may be making a play for Yahoo!'s search business. At least, that's been the predominant media speculation since Microsoft announced that it was exploring alternative combination

Well, I suppose now you expect me to gloat. To crow: "I told you so." To exult that I correctly predicted on Monday that Intuit 's (Nasdaq: INTU) earnings would be great. No thanks.

By almost any measure, Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) just showed some serious muscle. Revenue in the second quarter grew 11% year over year to $28.3 billion, and earnings per share rocketed ahead by 24% to $0.87. The slow economy at home isn't much of a problem, as 70% of sales come from abroad.

Now that reports show the Mac gaining market share, reporters and analysts alike are wondering when Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs will go after the corporate market.

Never, I hope.

Never?
It's simply the wrong war, for two reasons:

Teen retailer Pacific Sunwear (Nasdaq: PSUN) will report first-quarter 2008 financial results tomorrow. We'll see whether the company can skate around the growing negative sentiment and post results that will bring back a ray of sunshine.

As an impartial play on gaming growth, GameStop (NYSE: GME) seems likely to prosper, regardless of whether Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS) or Activision (Nasdaq: ATVI) holds the top score in game-making. Indeed, all last year, GameStop fragged every quarterly earnings hurdle in its path. Tomorrow morning, the world's preeminent gaming retailer heads into the next level with Q1 2008 earnings news. Will it continue to "pwn" the market?

Tween Brands (NYSE: TWB), which has made a name for itself catering to girls aged 7-14, posted first-quarter sales growth of 12.8% on continued strong results in its Justice store base. Unfortunately, results at its Limited Too stores continued to flag, contributing to a more than 65% drop in the quarter’s earnings.

Tween Brands (NYSE: TWB), which has made a name for itself catering to girls aged 7-14, posted first-quarter sales growth of 12.8% on continued strong results in its Justice store base. Unfortunately, results at its Limited Too stores continued to flag, contributing to a more than 65% drop in the quarter’s earnings.