I read a piece over at the Los Angeles Times about the rapidity of changes going on within Disney's (DIS) studio system. As a shareholder, I'm hoping for the best, but I'm not expecting much. Sometimes it's better that way when it comes to the Mouse. Those who have owned the stock as long as I have know what I'm talking about.

The cited article discusses the moves being made by the new studio head, Rich Ross. He replaced the well-respected Dick Cook. Well-respected or not, Cook had to go. I concurred with CEO Bob Iger's perception that a change in leadership was necessary for the celluloid portion of the Disney business model.

If consumers try a little harder this year, the holiday season has a shot of hiding memories of last year's nightmare for retailers. The retailers are doing their part, with Walmart (WMT), Gap (GPS), RadioShack (RSH), Walgreens (WAG) and many others opening their doors Thanksgiving Day, giving shoppers the opportunity to start their spending early. There's a chance that consumers will spend a bit more this year to thank each other for keeping their belts so tight for so long.

Forecasts of the season's ultimate result remain difficult to pin down. Some expect a year-over-year decline of 3%, and predictions range to an increase of 2%. Credit is harder to come by, and unemployment remains over 10% and at a 26-year high. But, the pressures on spending are offset by pent-up emotion and a stabilizing financial environment -- even if it isn't getting better yet, it doesn't seem to be getting worse.

"Is a stock market correction imminent?" asks market historian, timer and money manager Jim Stack.

In his Investech Market Analyst, he answers, "Yes. But, actually, one could answer that question the same way at almost any stage of every bull market in history. Corrections are always imminent in bull markets, with the only question being how severe the next correction will be."

Here, he looks at the market's history to help forecast both the likelihood of an upcoming correction as well as the historical evidence for a "Santa Claus rally."

Deere (DE) reported fourth-quarter results today. Even though the well-known maker of agricultural equipment had a tough year, the company's stock currently sits near a 52-week high as the bulls hope the worst is behind it.

On an adjusted basis, Deere posted a profit of 23 cents per share. This number easily beat the analysts, as they believed Q4 was only worth about 3 cents per share, according to our earnings preview.

Look for a LinkedIn IPO, but not in the near future. Company co-founder and executive chairman Reid Hoffman has revealed his (and his investors') exit strategy, even if it could take a while to get there. Any social media company IPO would take a while to get off the ground in this market, since companies are being incredibly cautious. So, "not anytime soon" could coincide with a change in market conditions ... but Hoffman stopped well short of that.

At an event in London to celebrate LinkedIn's hitting the 3 million user mark in Britain, Hoffman said about the company's IPO prospects, "Probably at some point a balance will occur when that's the right thing. That will not occur in the near term." Worldwide, LinkedIn has 53 million members.

If Thanksgiving is a bird, a beer and a football game for you, prepare to have your thinking challenged. Many retailers are looking to get a head start on Black Friday this year, opening a day early, some of them for the first time. Most Old Navy Stores (GPS) will open their doors on Thursday, along with Wal-Mart (WMT), Toys "R" Us, RadioShack (RSH) and Walgreen's (WAG). Rather than bet solely on Friday, retailers are looking to eke every last dime they can out of the holiday season this year.

The National Retail Federation expects holiday spending to drop 1% this year to $437.6 billion. "Retailers need to be competitive," says NRF spokeswoman Ellen Davis. "There's a lot riding on the success of November and December retail sales."

Luxury retailer Tiffany (TIF) provided some news for a normally slow pre-Thanksgiving trading session, announcing third-quarter earnings for the Street to chew on.

The luxury retailer reported third-quarter earnings of 35 cents per share, matching its results from a year earlier. Earnings from continuing operations came in at 34 cents per share. By either measure, TIF handily topped the consensus estimate for earnings of 24 cents per share.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says you can't ignore the positive outlook of Phillips-Van Heusen's CEO.

Can you be as bearish about retail if the company that has almost half the dress shirt business in the country, the one that has more than half the neckwear in this country, the one that has more than 600 stores and is in Kohl's (KSS) (Cramer's Take), Wal-Mart (WMT) (Cramer's Take), Sears (SHLD) (Cramer's Take) and just about everyone else, tells you that things are booming?

One of the top performers in the U.S. growth fund sector has lost his appetite for tech. Jerry Jordan has booted almost all his Apple (AAPL) holdings from his portfolio, and he's done the same with Google (GOOG). Both, Jordan says, have become too expensive. In fact, he's getting out of almost all U.S. and European tech companies for that reason -- and is turning his attention to China.

Jordan tells Reuters, "The growth [in China] is much faster, it's much more of a green field opportunity."

Facebook is implementing a new stock structure to make sure the founders retain control, immediately causing rumors about an impending initial public offering. Why would Facebook need Class A and Class B shares otherwise? Under the new structure, which is similar to Google's (GOOG), Mark Zuckerberg and other early entrants wouldn't have to worry about yielding the floor to outsiders when if the company goes public.

The stock structure was adopted to ensure that existing shareholders keep control on voting issues, according to Facebook statement. No details were given as to who the winners are in this arrangement, but a Wall Street Journal report says that, according to its sources, all current shareholders would be converted to Class B shares, which carry 10 times the voting rights of Class A shares.

U.S. stock futures advanced Wednesday morning ahead of what is going to be a busy day full of economic reports before Thanksgiving. While investor sentiment is still upbeat following the Federal Reserve minutes and optimism about the economy, trading could be choppy today given the market is closed tomorrow. The market will reopen Friday for a short day.

U.S. stocks fell on Tuesday on lackluster economic data, namely the GDP revision downward. However, the losses eased after the FOMC minutes and the Fed raised its growth expectations for 2010.

Nuclear power is coming back into style, and perhaps just in time for the climate, and for the United States.

Environmental groups, previously opposed to nuclear power, are starting to support the technology, as it represents the lesser of two evils compared to coal-fired electric power generation plants, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. And the choice is obvious enough: faced with either processing nuclear waste or seeing the atmosphere heat up to irreversible levels, via coal-producing climate change, nuclear technology wins.

AT&T, Inc. (T) has been getting itself into a wad about recent commercials from larger competitor Verizon Wireless. In those ads, Verizon touts its advanced 3G wireless coverage over AT&T's tepid 3G coverage as a way to battle the ubiquitous popularity of the Apple (AAPL) iPhone that no carrier seems to be able an unseat as the phone to exclusively sell.

The GDP for Q3 showed a revision confirming that the end of the recession is still 'unofficially' official. The Case Shiller data was more mixed despite another small gain, but it has a farther look-back than most new data has been showing.

And the FOMC released its minutes from the November 3 and 4 meeting that gave low inflation forecasts, higher GDP, and even less-bad unemployment. The FDIC fund going red had no solid impact on financials today. We even had a 2% drop in the price of oil despite a small gain in gold. Here were today's unofficial index closing bell levels:

DJIA 10,433.71 (-17.24)
NASDAQ 2,169.18 (-6.83)
S&P500 1,105.66 (-0.58)

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Playboy Enterprises (PLA) announced Tuesday that it will outsource all of its publishing operations -- save editorial -- to American Media Inc., reports the Wall Street Journal (subscription required). The Florida-based firm will take the reins on Playboy's production, circulation, advertising sales, marketing, and support functions, in exchange for fees and incentives. No further financial details on the deal were provided.

"Our goal is to focus our resources on what we do best, which is to create compelling content," explained CEO Scott Flanders. "By joining forces with American Media, we will be able to significantly reduce our cost structure and leverage the economies of scale related to manufacturing, distribution and marketing that are available to this large, multi-title publisher."