Short and sweet -- General Electric (GE) reported higher profits on slower sales with a positive outlook.

The company reported earnings of $3.2 billion, with EPS of 29 cents, up 32% from the third quarter of 2009. This is the second quarter (oh boy, a streak!) GE increased orders, displaying continuing-earnings growth. Revenue was $35.9 billion for the quarter, down 5% on lower equipment sales and reduced GE Capital assets. GE expects fourth-quarter 2010 Industrial revenues to grow sequentially from third quarter and to be about flat with the year-ago period.

Anyone investing in the stock market for a while has heard some variation of the story about the old investor that returns to his office after lunch and tells his partner to sell out the portfolio and go to all cash.

His astonished partner asks what in the world happened at lunch that convinced him to do this? The old veteran investor tells him that he went to get a haircut and his barber started giving him stock advice. If the market had reached a point where the barber was giving him stock advice, then everyone that could possibly be in the market was, and it was time to get out.

Sometimes the adviser is cab driver, or the grocery clerk, or shoe salesman, it matters not, the point is the same. By the time an investment becomes water cooler chatter it is time to be leery.

What good are analysts who are consistently wrong? For instance, take Arena Pharmaceuticals (ARNA) after FDA Panel Votes Against Arena's Diet Drug Lorcaserin. How much money did their clients lose? Not all analysts work for brokerage houses, but many do, and their pay is not determined by the accuracy of their calls but the increase in sales.

How do they explain their backpedaling? One day they are pushing the stock and the next they are running for cover. Clearly they have to change their opinions based on new information, but perhaps there was too much wild speculation to begin with. More likely, they made too many false assumptions, which they love to do in a crowd so as not to be the lone incompetent.

Are you comfortable with the price you are paying to fuel your vehicles? If so, good; if not, you better look for an alternative fuel vehicle. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) announced earlier today that it is "comfortable" with the current prices for black gold and that it doesn't want to "rock the boat" as the economy attempts to recover from the recession.

I assume that the members of OPEC then lit cigars with $20 bills and sat around sipping brandy from gold snifters while laughing uproariously. OPEC's Secretary General Abdalla El-Badri noted a sense of caution, because the cartel is trying to help the world economy. El-Badri stated that the path of the world recovery is "not really clear," and that OPEC doesn't "want to see a double-dip recession which ... would affect, negatively, almost everybody." Any change in prices or quotas this year will depend on unnamed "circumstances" according to the Secretary General.

Having accepted a speaking engagement at a university school of business recently, I had to think about what introductory information I could impart to the students about investing that would be practical, immediately useful and establish a foundation for whatever direction their paths might lead. This was supposed to be the first in a series. However, since I pull no punches and can be a little edgy in my candor and presentation, who knew if I would be invited back?

My outline had five basic elements. The first thing I told them was to start now!

In the past five years, we have watched Apple Inc. (AAPL) soar while another household name, Citigroup Inc. (C), has collapsed. Citigroup was our largest bank. Apple is our largest technology company, and the second largest U.S. company by capitalization. What of the future? Which is the better investment going forward? Where will each stock be next year, or in two?

I have read stories that project Apple to be $325, $350 even $400 per share in 12 months time. Apple closed Tuesday at $251.97. Many firmly believe it is severely undervalued right now. I think there are a lot of straight-line extrapolations going on. It's true that one could make a case for any of these targets to become reality. However, that will not necessarily make it true.

Could it possibly be that someone other than Mark Zuckerberg is the majority owner of Facebook -- the largest social network in the world with nearly 500 million members? That would be incredible, but that is exactly what Paul Ceglia claims in a civil lawsuit he filed in the Supreme Court of New York's Allegany County last month. Ceglia says he owns 84% of Facebook.

According to the lawsuit, Paul Ceglia asserts he signed a contract with Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook co-founder, in 2003 to develop and design a website, which eventually was launched as thefacebook.com. The contract entitled Ceglia to a $1,000 fee and a 50% stake in the product.

A major point in the contract also stipulated that Ceglia "would acquire an additional 1 percent interest in the business, per day, until the website was completed." By February 4, 2004, Ceglia's stake in Facebook totaled 84%, according to the suit.

The long awaited Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Tesla Motors (TSLA) stock hit the market at $17.00 a share and it is up in a down market, trading between $18 and $19 throughout Tuesday morning.

I say stay away. First and foremost, investors should take note of the fact that most IPO's end up as losing propositions. In the case of Tesla, which lost over $55.7 million last year and will lose more this year, the bleeding has just begun.

The car manufacturing business is very capital intensive and Tesla only hopes to stem the tide in 2012 when it projects a production run of 20,000 Model S all electric sedans for $50,000 each.

The daily cost of operations, clean-up and restitution to BP plc (BP) has reached $100 million per day (over the last three days), according to the company. Unless this is being broadcast to garner unlikely sympathy from a angry crowd, then the costs have reached a magnitude I would have thought unlikely, and my contrarian bet on BP may be at risk.

It's important for me to disclose from the beginning (not just in the footer) that I have wagered that BP is oversold through options and equity. How much so depends on a lot of factors. I made this calculated risk based on the assumption that forcing the company into bankruptcy is not in anyone's best interest. However, I am once again reminded of a great line from the The Maltese Falcon, in which Kasper Gutman cautions Sam Spade:

When you are in a hole, stop digging -- no expression better exemplifies the situation in Venezuela caused by Hugo Chavez and his government. Obviously, this is not something they understand, as the current administration keeps digging the Venezuelan economy into a deeper hole, intensified by its attempt to nationalize rigs owned by a U.S.-based company.

On Wednesday, Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez issued a statement that Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the state oil company, was going to nationalize 11 oil rigs owned by Helmerich & Payne, a Tulsa, Oklahoma-based drilling company.

All it takes is one story to ignite the market, reverse fortune and increase volatility. In the past two weeks this has happened a lot, as the tug-of-war between bulls and bears plays out. The fervor created by headlines portrays investors with little conviction about what to do with their money.

Inflation or deflation, what can we look forward to? Is China going to blow-up its economy with its very own housing bubble? Will Greece default and others follow? Will BP p.l.c. (BP) stock fall deeper than its undersea gushing Gulf of Mexico oil well, and take other oil service companies down with it?

Does any of this matter -- yes and no.

Voltaire said, "Common sense is not so common" and George Bernard Shaw commented that having " ...enough of it was genius."

This reminds me of Warren Buffet, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) or Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc. (AAPL) that have both displayed plenty of the former and arrived at the latter in their business pursuits.

Derivatives like Collateral Debt Obligations, or CDO's, and Credit Default Swaps, get their value from something else entirely: total hype in an environment of smoke and mirrors.

It turns out that if you build layer upon layer of derivatives until you have no idea what the original underlying value truly is, it becomes so convoluted that a genius can't comprehend it at all. It is self evident that nobody could even determine all the counter-party risk.

The world learned the details about the Apple Inc. (AAPL) iPhone 4G from Steve Jobs yesterday, and while he was presenting the amazing device with 100 new features and 24% slimmer profile, the company stock was sinking. Actually, most stocks were sinking.

The biggest reason for the stocks recent demise: the big cats decided it was time -- and others started to follow. There is nothing wrong with Apple at all and yesterday Jobs pushed out further in the race to produce the best product, stretching a lead he is intent on maintaining. I'm no Apple cheerleader having posted Apple $300 -- Not This Year! last February, when I thought the fanboys were confusing dreams with facts.

During the ongoing environmental disaster caused by BP plc (BP) that is spewing thousands of barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico (only now reducing the spill rate), there have been many calls to have the federal government take over the cap and recapture effort. This is a very lame idea.

First of all, nobody has more incentive in bringing this disaster to an end then BP because no entity has suffered more financially or seen its reputation eroded faster.

What a dumb question. How the heck should I know how low Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS) might go? But everyone keeps asking me.

I guess we do know a few things or can make some very broad judgments. Let's give the question some basic reconnoitering. Perhaps with a defensive position in mind, a word with military connotations is particularly appropriate.

The stock closed yesterday at $140.10. It has been falling faster than the market under the weight of the SEC, DOJ and Congressional chest pounding. I do not think they are going out of business so lets assume it will not go to zero. Let's even stick our necks out further by suggesting it is highly improbable that it falls anywhere near its low of November 2008 when it closed at $53.31, under the truly catastrophic financial nightmare following Lehman Bros. collapse -- and fear that Goldman Sachs could be next.