In the wake of her divorce from ex-98 Degree hunk Nick Lachey and the disappointing box office showing of Dukes of Hazzard, a noteworthy debut for her latest movie, Blonde Ambition, was just what the former pop princess needed.

But this was not what the doctor ordered. The movie was thought to be headed for direct to DVD release but they decided to give it a shot in Texas theaters. It grossed $384 in its opening -- $48 per screen, 6 people per showtime, and a total of 48 viewers.

Ouch. They could blame the fact that the movie has been available for illicit download online for weeks, but that only garnered 6000 viewers -- who could watch it at home. On their computers. For free.

After reporting a disappointing decline in second-quarter earnings and sales last week, Macy's (NYSE: M) is pulling out the big guns. Donald Trump and Martha Stewart are just two among a coterie of celebrities being employed in the department-store company's $100 million advertising blitz.

New television spots for Macy's - one of which will debut on September's Emmy-Award broadcast - will also feature R&B singer Usher, Tim Gunn from Project Runway, chef Emeril Lagasse, and hip-hop mogul Sean "Puff Daddy" "P. Diddy" "Diddy" Combs.

Also on the roster as a celebrity endorser for the Cincinnati-based retailer is Jessica Simpson. Seems like a bit of a slap in the face to hometown boy (and erstwhile Simpson paramour) Nick Lachey.

Stewart, figurehead of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (NYSE: MSO), also is working with Macy's on an exclusive line of Stewart-branded home products, which will launch this fall only in Macy's stores.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

Shares of Parlux (NASDAQ: PARL) are up around 16% today on just one bit of news. No, the company didn't report a great quarter, and no private equity firm has made a bid. Instead, the manufacturer and market of perfume lines including Maria Sharapova, Paris Hilton, and Royal Copenhagen has signed a deal with Jessica Simpson to launch a fragrance bearing the former Newlyweds star's name. Financial terms have not been disclosed, and that's a key point for investors to remember.

In licensing deals, most of the benefit of the name aggregates to the owner of the name. Ms. Simpson will likely receive a hefty chunk of the profits from the product's sales, leaving Parlux in a manufacturing, marketing, and logistics role. As exciting as all the company's lines are, Parlux has lost money over the last 12 months, and its stock has plunged from an all-time high of over $16 to its current price of around $5.20. Interestingly, the stock hit a 3-year low yesterday.

I'm surprised at how positively the market is reacting to this bit of news. In the wake of her high-profile split with Nick Lachey, the flop of Dukes of Hazzard, and her last album A Public Affair, most of the headlines she's generated lately have been about her relationship with John Mayer.

As one Amazon.com reviewer put it, "Her 15 minutes are ticking." For now, the Jessica Simpson deal is helping sell Parlux stock. But will she be able to sell Parlux perfume?

The Kentucky Derby is, without a doubt, the most exciting horse racing event of the year. Millions of people who don't even watch horse racing pay attention to it, and it's featured all over the news. With all the coverage and excitement surrounding the race, it may be tempting to place a bet on it. Heck, even Jessica Simpson won a few dollars betting on it a few years ago on an episode of her show The Newlyweds (Sadly, I lost a pretty penny betting that their marriage would last more than five years).

But here's the best advice I can give you regarding the Derby: Don't bet on it. As the most-watched race of the year, you won't have any edge -- there's too many other experts watching it. In his book Picking Winners, horse-betting expert Andy Beyer advises readers to "Only go to tracks where there aren't a lot of good players so you can clean up."

What does this have to do with investing? Following Beyer's logic, it is also unwise to invest in stocks like ExxonMobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS), and Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT). There are simply too many good players handicapping these stocks for us to be able to find good deals. Remember: In horse racing, the object is not to bet on the horse most likely to win: That will nearly always be the favorite. The object is to bet on the horse that offers the best risk/reward ratio -- the horse that has a better chance at winning than its odds would indicate. This is a market inefficiency, and it's more likely to be found in small-caps or small tracks than big-caps or big tracks.