Santa hasn't even been tugged down Central Park West yet, and Wal-Mart (WMT) is already slashing its prices. The market among major retailers is intensifying, with many offering products as loss leaders in order to entice customers into the store (physical or otherwise) and boost their basket sizes. Along with Target (TGT) and Amazon (AMZN), Walmart is slashing DVD prices, the same tactic it's using with books.

Retailers are rushing to undercut each other this year, which is causing prices to spiral down quickly. When Walmart announced reduced prices on several titles to $10, Amazon followed at $9.99, with Walmart stepping back in at $9.98.

A few weeks ago the US government slapped import duties on Chinese manufactured tires. China shot back by launching and investigation through the World Trade Organization (WTO) of US car exports to China.

Now we have round two. The US has imposed import duties of up to 99% on $2.6 billion dollars of Chinese pipe imports.

The ruling is temporary, however, US Customs will start collecting cash or bond deposits on imports. A final ruling will be made in March. Meanwhile, President Obama plans his first visit to China within a few weeks.

Shares of Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) are trading up in after hours trading today after the company posted strong Q4 earnings numbers after the market close.

As we noted in our earnings preview, the company was expected to show earnings for the quarter of 21 cents per share on $2.39 billion in revenues. The actual numbers came in at 24 cents per share with revenues of $2.4 billion.

When you run across a stock with a 16% yield you at least have to check out the story. Prospect Capital Corp (NASDAQ: PSEC) is just such a company. Last week PSEC declared its 20th consecutive increased dividend.

In sharing my adventures and opinions in the investment world I try very hard to be candid without crossing the line into being a promoter. That said, I have been buying stock regularly over the last 12 months and buying on fear has paid off handsomely. As the market has catapulted upward since March the opportunities have diminished. However, I did add PSEC in the last month.

They are the masters of the game. Who are they? They are the traders at Goldman Sachs.

Why is Goldman Sachs Co. (NYSE: GS) the best? Take a look at the record. Goldman traders had one loss in the third quarter. They had a string of 36 $100 million days out of 65 trading days. These figures were down slightly when Goldman had 46 $100 million trades in the second quarter.

While Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) continues losing hundreds of thousands of customers every quarter, it has actually raised the bar on offering cutting-edge smartphones at the same time. Smartphones, which are slowly but surely replacing the standard cellphone for the typical "always need to be connected" consumer, are helping wireless carriers drum up wireless data revenue to replace the lost voice revenue as customers talk less.

American businesses are setting up shop in Mexico instead of China. China, which was the number one location for manufacture of goods bound for the U.S., has fallen into third place. Mexico is now number one, followed by India.

Several factors have converged to make Mexico an attractive place for manufacture. Daniel Silva of the Mission Economic Development Authority said: "Compared to China, Mexico offers better access to North American markets with a shorter, faster and cheaper transportation route to move products and supplies by truck, rather than over thousands of miles by ship, rail and truck combined."

Best Buy Inc. (NYSE: BBY) has become a leader in DVD sales in the last half-decade, but the largest consumer electronics retailer in the U.S. may see that the future of the movie rental business is in downloading -- not discs.

Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) has been a pioneer in this space, as the largest DVD mail-order rental firm has begun embedding its software in Blu-ray players, set-top boxes, and other devices to stream digital content over the internet -- no disc needed. Best Buy apparently wants a little piece of that action.

While eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) has been working hard to manage its marketplace in a trying economy, its PayPayl business has been growing comfortably and could become the company's biggest earner. For the past two years, eBay has focused on improving the look of its website and helping buyers and sellers to get along in a virtual world built entirely on trust.

In the background, though, the segment of the business that moves money from Point A to Point B has been on fire. Even with payment processing competition from Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), PayPal has been able to do more than hold its own.

Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) Google Apps project has gained steam (and customers) since its introduction a few years ago. Although it's not yet a true competitor to Microsoft Corporation's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Office juggernaut, it is making headway.

The "software as a service" camp is doing nothing but speeding up, as small and large businesses would like to offload expensive software installations and just use the Internet as a vehicle for getting things done across boundaries and time zones. Microsoft, though, is not capitulating just yet.

AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T) has seen incredible gain on the back of the Apple iPhone in the last two years. So much, in fact, that its national wireless network is most likely strained -- causing many an iPhone customer to constantly have problems with their service.

Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) recently fell as the world's second-largest PC maker, and if Taiwan's Acer has any fire left, it will be directed at the numero uno in global PC sales, Hewlett-Packard Corp. (NYSE: HPQ). Is it really out of the realm of possibilities to have Acer unseat a $100 billion global technology giant?

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE: RCL) reports Q3 earnings results Tuesday, hence I'll await those results before re-evaluating the stock, but today we'll take a moment to highlight a high-profile addition to its fleet: the Oasis of the Seas -- the world's largest oceanliner.

Five times larger than the SS Titanic -- 225,282 gross tons and 1,181 feet in length versus Titanic's 46,328 gross tons and 830 feet in length -- the $1.5 billion Oasis will perhaps represent the world's largest and elaborate floating city, in terms of creature comforts (U.S. Nimitz-class aircraft carriers can carry more people, but no, the U.S. Navy does not offer as lavish accommodations nor as much per-person space for military personnel).

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) wants to sell you everything it possibly can. Need funeral arrangements? The world's largest retailer wants to help. $4 prescription drugs? It has you covered. In fact, it's hard to think of any product category that Wal-Mart does not seem at least a little covered with. For good reason, too: Wal-Mart has tapped out much of the short-term growth by virtue of it being almost everywhere in the U.S. and selling everything you can possibly think of.

Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) recently has had a knack for releasing software products that challenge -- and even threaten -- entire industries. Take, for example, last week's enhancement to Google Maps, which caused the stock prices of GPS companies TomTom and Garmin to plummet after Google announced its own GPS service that, in many ways, was a superior product. Yes, it's free with a Google-powered phone.

What's next? How about real estate listings?