Yes, I remain deaf, dumb, and blind. I am not impressed with the Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) earnings report. I am sure the amazonian shareholders will confirm my ignorance. What is all the excitement about? So what if it almost quadrupled it's earnings. That is not hard to do when you barely have any. Nineteen cents a share -- oh my gosh!

So now if they can keep it up and earn perhaps $1.00 in the next 12 months Amazon only has a forward P/E of 100. Are you kidding me,100? Are we to believe that a dollar invested in Amazon is worth 3 times what Google is worth? I don't think this makes any sense at all. There must be a few folks out there that are equally unimpressed. After Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) reported earnings both stocks shot up. Amazon on the other hand is off over 10% in after market trading.

Maybe I'll feel different in the morning after further thought or the enlightened commentary of one of our readers. In the mean time I'm left thinking, is this all there is?

To find potential opportunities and verify my track record, read Chasing Value or Serious Money.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm.

Everyone's singing a new Zune today following the unveiling of Microsoft's iPod competitor (née killer), and that Zune is brown. While no one seemed quite sure, the reaction was generally positive; watchers thought the music sharing option was rather brilliant, and the interface intuitive and simple.

The question on everyone's minds is, still, how much? Guesses tend to end up around $299.

Microsoft investors seemed pleased, and drove the stock up 35 cents, or 1.35%, to a comfortable $26.33.

This was actually a quiet day for Time Warner (TWX), even with the stock down 0.4% to close at $16.91. There was some good news for TWX when Time Warner Telecom (TWTC) announced that TWX and affiliates were selling some 27.5 million shares. This is actually good as it allows TWX to focus on its own entities a tad more, and allows the company to unlock some of the hidden value in its assets. That won't generate enough cash that the bond rating firms will take much note, but it won't be bad for them at all either. The volume was pretty normal, with 21.9 million shares traded compared to an average daily volume of 20.5 million.

The move probably wasn't even a "Punish Cramer" after he said "BUY TWX" yesterday because of how his call on Hansen (HANS) went so poorly in the immediate day after. It seems that the stock was just doing a healthy pullback because of overbought indicators. That isn't indicative of a bunch of short sellers and it isn't indicative of a big institutional investor or key insider bailing out. This is just some clean profit taking on overbought conditions that we had previously telegraphed. When stocks go up seven out of eight or nine days, that happens.

Options activity was quiet a day ahead of expiration date, so there wasn't any added options volatility causing any artificial moves. I was shocked that I had to go all the way out to the January 2008 contracts just to find contracts that posted over 1,000 traded on the day at 3:15 PM. The JAN08 $15 PUTS traded 5,495 contracts as of that time. Someone made a highly speculative bet in an options trade by purchasing 1,362 of the JAN08 $30 CALLS for a $0.05. That is someone looking for a highly leveraged trade that they will make a fortune on if the stock starts to rally significantly.

Time Warner shareholders have been biting their collective nails for the past few weeks, wondering what would happen with the second quarter earnings, due out tomorrow morning before the bell. What news will accompany the financials? Will AOL subscriptions be down yet again? Will the board be doing something radical: offering AOL emails for free, spinning off a portion of the company, or (who knows) creating yet another video sharing site?

The nails were bitten down another 1.52% today in anticipation as the stock fell 25 cents to $16.25, and down a few more cents in after-hours trading. This isn't cause for alarm, though: the price is several ticks away from the 52-week low of $15.70. Keep posted tomorrow as we'll be live blogging the earnings call at 8:30 a.m. EDT.

Investors are a hopeful kind of bird. Yahoo! stock, along with many in the tech sector, has been in the doldrums as of late. Earnings are coming out in about an hour, though, and this makes the investor bird preen its feathers and buy in advance of the announcement. Despite intraday lows that were down signficantly from yesterday's close, Yahoo! ended the day at $32.17, up 33 cents or 1.04%.

But Piper Jaffray, among other analysts, are predicting good things, including the consensus 11 cents per share profit (down from 13 cents in the year-ago quarter) and positive news in the search ad revenue department. Check back at 5 p.m. Eastern, when we'll be liveblogging the earnings report.

Poor eBay. Surely the recent slide is not all its own fault. In fact, tech stocks (and especially Apple) are being blamed for its decline today. Yet it's special (bad special) that I had to dust off a three-year chart to show you today.

Just gaze at that. Ick! eBay is, indeed, at a low not seen for nearly three years, closing today at $26.58, down 64 cents or 2.35% on the day. It's not all Apple's fault, to be sure; investors are worried with concerns over the company's management trickle-out (it's not enough to be called an "exodus" -- yet), and perhaps there is some lingering competitive concern over the move by Christie's to hold its own auctions, or worries over Google Checkout. Either way, times are not the best for the company's stock.

Evidently, investors were feeling good about Microsoft's future today, after concerns late last week. Maybe it was the new version of Messenger released today. Maybe it was general warm-and-fuzzies over the prospects of leaders like Ray Ozzie, who will inherit much of Bill Gates' technology leadership (and, if Ray's listening to Steve Gillmor's advice, he will "seize control of the company alongside Steve Ballmer, not as a greater of equals with Craig Mundie"). Either way the stock was up over 2%, or 45 cents, to $22.55.

MSN Messenger has been renamed along with so many other properties under the "MSN" moniker, to "Windows Live Messenger." While I don't love this focus on the "live"-ness of everything Microsoft (as opposed to the dead messenger? We all know that instant messenger programs do get people in the flesh, it seems so redundant to have to mention that), people seem excited about the new product.

Oddly, though, the "live" debut seems to have hit a snafu ... users are reporting a "coming soon" page where the press release points to a download.

Microsoft joined the rest of the BloggingStocks universe today, closing down significantly. For MSFT, losing 57 cents took the stock down 2.4%, to $23.15, and it was despite an opening bell spike.

None of the market seemed to be much affected by individual company news today, although there was a lot of buzz today about Mr. Softie, with a number of MSFT watchers eager to see what Steve Ballmer will say tomorrow morning in his uncharacteristic chat with investors. And later this afternoon, news of pricing for Microsoft Vista ($450 is the word on the 'net) had lots of bloggers biting, wondering whether it was worth your while to pay more for your operating system than your computer (despite the bells and whistles everyone's raving over). Ryan Block at Engadget muses, "when you consider the fact that the single-license full install retail MSRP of XP Pro is still $300 US, it's not too drastically unrealistic. Don't get us wrong, we're not exactly endorsing snapping up operating systems that cost more than the machines they run on but, you know, it is Ultimate freaking Vista, dude."

The reports on Office Ulimate MSRP: $679. That's some expensive PowerPoint slides. Maybe I should sign up for pay-as-you-go. Dude. And that brings up an excellent question: if the geeks are willing to pay, will corporations follow suit?

What's the problem with iPods? Supply has been an issue, with customers and retailers joining together to bicker over that last iPod Nano come holiday time. If Apple has anything to do with it, next Christmas it will be a little easier. That is, if you're a sucker for anything that rolls out of a vending machine. It seems as if there will be 180 of the new Zoom @ Macy's vending machines -- scheduled to stock iPods -- in stores by the fall. I, for one, would much rather buy the new $29 Nike+iPod Sport in a vending machine in one of my fave running spots. Now there's an interesting business plan!

If investors heard about the new vending machines, though, they weren't impressed. AAPL was down 23 cents to $63.15 in the same end-of-day malaise that struck the rest of the market. It's a pity, as AAPL opened extremely strong, up to $65.19 in the first minutes of the trading day on below-average volume.

Confident about Vista release dates? That's what Microsoft "Windows guru" Jim Allchin told Reuters in an interview today. He's the co-president of the company's Platforms & Services Division, and the one responsible for Vista, the upcoming operating system update. The market has been highly skeptical of Microsoft's ability to release the software on time; ever since Gartner released a report indicating Vista would hit the shelves months behind schedule.

Evidently, the market remains skeptical. MSFT was way up in the morning to a respectable $23.38, but plunged at the end of the day in a market-wide sell-off, ending down nine cents at $22.79. Evidently, Allchin's confidence didn't have much sway in the face of uncertainty over commodity prices and, perhaps, the continuing incredulity of MSFT investors.

Ah, poor Softie. Where have you gone wrong? In a day when the market was generally up, Microsoft flirted with its new two-year low, closing down 27 cents to $22.56, a drop of 1.18%. MSFT took a dive in the opening minutes and never recovered. Why so low, Softie?

The volume was relatively average, so all we can do is speculate. Many Apple watchers were surprised today to discover that the consumer versions of the new MacBook and the little Mac Mini don't meet the minimum requirements for Microsoft Vista when it's released ... sometime. Is the checklist for Vista so draconian that investors can't stomach the pain of having to purchase a special graphics adaptor? Must be.

Apple always has to be different. But today, everyone cheered as the company brought out a version of their pretty laptop, the MacBook, in matt black (yes, that's the same finish as your boring old PC). Our sister site, Engadget, took the MacBook for a spin and declared it "a pretty freaking great value" (but they're not doing black, for the record). The Apple Insider hails the removable (by an actual user!) hard disks. No more purely cosmetic screws!

It wasn't all black hearts and roses, though; MacWorld UK today mourned the locking down of OS X. Thanks to concerns of piracy, Apple closed down its open source code so that developers can no longer tinker with its operating system. Bad for pirates is also bad for very advanced users; says Tom Yager, "there are ways to address the piracy issue without stripping the critical and defining quality of openness from OS X."

AAPL stock responded by ticking up 25 cents to $65.26 on lower-than-average volume. Evidently the market, while intrigued, isn't ready to jump unreservedly on board for black is the new MacBook.

[Photo redjar]

Yahoo! had a bit of a tough week, but weathered it. They've been accused of advertising fraud, parted ways with advertising on MySpace, and face online advertising and search ad wars, yet still ended yesterday up 47 cents, a 1.46% gain. This is probably due to people thinking the stock a good bargain, and also due to a lot of positive signs from Yahoo! that the company is still a strong competitor, given its position owning a large portion of the online advertising market. Partnering with AT&T and hints of interest from Microsoft in teaming up to gain a larger share of the overall online advertising pie all add up to a Yahoo! that ended more or less steady over the week.

No one likes to be average, even if there's a little plus sign after your "C." This grade, handed down by CNNMoney for AOL's performance as compared to other internet search firms, may have been the impetus to send Time Warner's stock down another nine cents to $17.03, despite a hopeful market open.

There certainly wasn't much in the way of love for Time Warner today. Business Week wondered if AOL wasn't moving too slow, mourning "The Ails of AOL"; Jeremy MacNealy of the Motley Fool snarks at how "pleased" Dick Parsons was despite "net revenues inching forward just 1% versus the year-ago period"; and while some analysts said Time Warner's prospects were "promising," still, it's "not enough" to get a boost in recommendations from anyone on the street.

Investors may finally have heard the credulity of people like me, Tim Beyers of Motley Fool, and any number of Microsoft employees. The stock traded up 27 cents, or 1.17%, to $23.44 on about-average volume. Of course, the stock still sits at its lowest price in the last four years, despite the fact that the company is both (a) profitable and (b) still dominating the world in its usual way.

Oddly, the price increase came on a day in which the Microsoft news was dominated by a rather negative spin; everyone is wondering why the company changed the name of MSN adCenter to Microsoft adCenter. Says Jennifer Slegg of Search Engine Watch, "I am not sure that rebranding from MSN to Microsoft is the best decision for adCenter, but it is certainly a decision that will get people talking." Evidently, talk is enough for a 1% runup. As Martha says, that's a good thing.