The global recession has taken its toll on many companies, as have cheap knockoffs of products. When you can get a comparable product for half the price, why wouldn't you purchase the cheaper product? While such practices may not take a major bite out of the profits of athletic apparel companies like Nike (NKE) or Under Armour (UA), it is having a devastating impact on Russian company OAO Izhmash. Haven't heard of OAO Izhmash, if you haven't, I can almost guarantee that you have heard of its major product: the AK-47.

So, it isn't bad enough that Tiger Woods ruined his marriage and soiled his squeaky-clean reputation. Apparently he cost his corporate sponsors $12 billion in stock value as well. According to a study conducted by UC Davis economics professors Victor Stango and Christopher Knittel, Tiger lost his sponsors a "collective $5 to $12 billion." This loss outpaces "several decades' worth of Tiger Woods' personal endorsement income."

The study examined the stock market returns during the 13 trading days after Tiger's car crash, a period concluding a week after Tiger's announcement of an indefinite leave of absent. The two economics professors then compared the returns for Tiger's sponsors during this 13-day period to those of the total stock market and each of the companies' closest competitor. Returns for the four years prior to the car accident were also taken into account in order to establish the stocks' historic performance.

Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage on BloggingStocks:

• Adobe Systems Inc. (ADBE) shares rose after lower Q4 earnings and revenue beat analysts' expectations.
• Best Buy Inc. (BBY) shares sold off despite better-than-expected Q3 results due to the lower gross margin.
• Charles Schwab Corp. (SCHW) warned that Q4 earnings would come in lower than the Street view
• Discover Financial Services (DFS) shares were up after it reported better-than-expected Q4 earnings.
• First Solar Inc. (FSLR) offered a solid 2010 outlook but the consensus EPS estimate is high in the range.
• General Mills Inc. (GIS) strong Q2 results included better-than-expected earnings and a rosy outlook.

Today had little economic data to boost or quell markets. Asian stocks were weak but European market gave the US a boost on German business confidence. Today's gainers were mostly on earnings and oil and gold both rallied off lows after Iran's military supposedly raised an Iranian flag over an Iraqi oil well in a disputed area now part of Iraq. Gold may still be dead or range bound the rest of 2009.

The closing bell on this Triple Witching expiration date was not certain on the direction throughout most of the late morning and through most of the afternoon.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 10,310.23 +1.97 (0.02%)
S&P 500 1,102.73 +6.65 (0.61%)
Nasdaq 2,211.69 +31.64 (1.45%)

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Perhaps lost in all the Tiger Woods related news surrounding the company is Thursday's earnings announcement from Nike (NKE).

Late in the day, Nike announced second-quarter earnings of $375 million, or 76 cents per share. A year ago, Nike raked in $391 million, or 80 cents per share. Total revenue for Nike dropped 4% to $4.4 billion. The Street expected Nike to report earnings of 71 cents per share on revenue of $4.4 billion.

With the last of the big earnings out of the way, we won't see any major downgrades the rest of '09, TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says.

We should be in research heaven starting today. We have unwritten rules at the end of the year in this game: no big downgrades. And with almost no earnings reports left for the year, there is little reason to expect any.

Given that the last major earnings reports -- General Mills (GIS) (Cramer's Take), Research In Motion (RIMM) (Cramer's Take) and Nike (NKE) (Cramer's Take) -- were all worth praising it is hard to see why this year should be any different.

U.S. stock futures advanced Friday morning, indicating Wall Street is ready to reverse the negative trend of the last few days. Several strong and better-than-expected company reports late Thursday contributed to the changing atmosphere as investors regained confidence in companies' profit prospects.

Shares of athletic giant Nike, Inc. (NKE) are trading sharply higher after hours, following reporting better than expected earnings for its fiscal second quarter.

As we noted in our earnings preview, analysts had been expecting the company to show earnings of 71 cents per share, but the company outpaced these estimates with a reported 76 cents during the quarter, on revenues of $4.4 billion.

Nike Inc. (NKE), which said it stands by embattled Tiger Woods, is scheduled to discuss its financial results for the second quarter of fiscal 2010 in a conference call Thursday, December 17, at 5:00 PM (ET). You can catch the live webcast of the call on the company's website.

In the three months that ended in November, Nike selected a new CEO for Converse, launched its N7 collection and increased its quarterly dividend. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters are looking for Nike to report that earnings for the quarter fell 11.3% from a year ago to 71 cents per share. Revenue is expected to decline 4.2% to $4.4 billion.

With companies like Accenture (ACN) and Procter & Gamble (PG) cutting, or at least weakening, their ties with embattled ladies' man Tiger Woods, it's interesting to look at who is standing by him: Upper Deck, a leading producer of sports cards and other memorabilia, has opted to stand by him.

"Upper Deck will maintain its exclusive agreement with Tiger in both our sports cards and memorabilia categories, and we look forward to his eventual return to the PGA Tour," Upper Deck Chief Executive Richard McWilliam said in a statement. "Tiger and his family have our full support."

Time to piggyback on my thoughts about Tiger Woods potentially quitting golf. A statement on Tiger's personal website announced that the world's greatest golfer is going to take "an indefinite break from professional golf." Tiger begins the statement by expressing awareness of the "disappointment and hurt that my infidelity has cause to so many people, most of all my wife and children."

This is the first time that Tiger has really spoken since the car crash, which I feel was a bit of a public relations mistake. His silence allowed the public and tabloids to assume Tiger's guilt before he spoke. Of course, it doesn't matter now, as Tiger admitted to "infidelity," confirming what many have theorized. Tiger added that "It may not be possible to repair the damage I've done, but I want to do my best to try."

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the biggest companies can lobby their way to huge profits.

Anyone serious about climate change knows that coal is the worst enemy of the environment. We can have all of the electric cars we want, if they are hooked into a coal-based utility system then the gains are irrelevant. We can also be sure that while all sorts of companies, like the General Electrics (GE) (Cramer's Take) and Cokes (KO) (Cramer's Take) and Nikes (NKE) (Cramer's Take) and Nestles, support climate control, they are not equal to one Southern Company (SO) (Cramer's Take), which is an important coal-burning company and a huge lobbyist for the coal industry.

Our nation has a two-pronged climate philosophy: pushes on conservation and on renewables. Neither is enough to get us through the next 10 years; we can't produce enough renewable energy at a cheap price and we can't caulk our way out of the jam.

Okay, so everyone is weighing on the Tiger Woods incident over the holiday weekend. As a "business of sports blogger," it's my turn to toss in my two cents. First things first, whatever you think happened early on Friday morning, Tiger has asked for privacy and respect, so I will not participate in the rumor-mongering taking place across the Internet.

What is interesting is that people are forgetting to look at what this could do for his biggest sponsor, Nike (NKE). Now, I am not saying that any stock trouble that Nike may experience is the fault of the little incident between (or involving) Tiger and Mrs. Tiger, but the company will be performing a bit of damage control, just as Tiger and crew have.

After meandering for most of the summer, Nike Inc.'s (NKE) stock has accelerated above its 50-day moving average, and that's one reason I'm Reiterating my Buy rating for the company's shares, first recommended on May 12, 2009 at a price of $50.98. If you bought NKE in May, you're up about 27%.

Look for Nike to record a roughly 7-9% earnings gain in 2010, aided by emerging market sales gains. What's more, the major source of institutional investors's (IIs') concern this summer – U.S. sales – appears to be fading: 2010 U.S. sales will likely drop 2-3%, due to the continued 'frugal consumer' trend – a down year but certainly not a disaster, for NKE, which does about 60% of its business outside the U.S. The First Call FY2010/FY2011 EPS estimates for NKE are $3.65 to $4.01.

I promised myself that I wasn't going to give Nike (NKE) the publicity that it wants with its new rivalry uniforms. You see, the company has decided that 10 colleges will wear specially designed uniforms for their big rivalry games this year, assigning the slogan "Prepare for Combat" to the program.

For example, The Ohio State University will wear "retro-inspired" uniforms when it takes the field against that team from up north (Michigan). I was worried when I heard that Nike was designing this uniform; Ohio State doesn't do alternate uniforms -- they never have. Honestly, it isn't all that bad; the jersey leaves a little to be desired, but perhaps that is just me.