Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected the parade of earnings declines to continue into the final week of February, with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. (NYSE: MSO), Nordstrom Inc. (NYSE: JWN), Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD), Wynn Resorts Ltd. (NASDAQ: WYNN), Macy's Inc. (NYSE: M), DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. (NYSE: DWA), Limited Brands Inc. (NYSE: LTD), Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT), Royal Bank Of Canada (NYSE: RY), Del Monte Foods Co. (NASDAQ: DLM), Kohl's Corp. (NYSE: KSS), Washington Post Co. (NYSE: WPO), Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL), Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS), Campbell Soup Co. (NYSE: CPB), RadioShack Corp. (NYSE: RSH), and H.J. Heinz Co. (NYSE: HNZ) all expected to post lower earnings for the most recent quarter. Office Depot Inc. (NYSE: ODP), Saks Inc. (NYSE: SKS), and Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. (NYSE: CTB) are expect to have swung to a loss.

We recently presented a look at some of the most notorious financial felons of contemporary times.

Since then, news has included the indictment of Mark Cuban for insider trading in a case that is somewhat reminiscent of Martha Stewart's case. According to the SEC, the billionaire entrepreneur asked his broker to sell all his shares of Mamma.com after the company's CEO confidentially told him of an impending stock offering that would dilute the value of all existing shares. By selling before the information became public, Cuban is said to have sidestepped losses of more than $750,000. Cuban insists, though, that no agreement existed to keep the information confidential.

And then there was the indictment in Texas of Vice President Dick Cheney, along with former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others. There seems to be a conflict of interest between the vice president's influence on the federal agency that oversees federal immigration detention centers and his substantial holdings in Vanguard Group, which invests in private prison companies. But does the lame-duck county district attorney, who was a no-show in court, have the authority to bring charges against federal officials with regard to federally run institutions?

This post is part of a feature in which we wonder whatever happened to some notorious financial felons. See all 17.

I sometimes get the impression that people think I'm joking when I say I love Martha Stewart. I get it; I don't look like I have much in common with Martha. My apartment is cluttered, my cleaning habits are slapdash at best, and my hair is generally unkempt. I have at least a week's worth of random garbage traveling with me in the Hyundai at all times -- and I often get the distinct impression that people from New England are looking down on me.

Despite our differences, Martha is a personal hero of mine. Flipping through her magazine, Martha Stewart Living, is not unlike paging through a National Geographic. It's a glossy, impeccably photographed glimpse into an exotic world that I can only hope one day to visit. If the July 2007 issue can be believed, Martha is the type of woman who, on a whim, jaunts out to East Hampton for a weekend of kayaking and antiquing. In between horseback rides and hikes, she just might whip up some pasta with salted pressed fish roe, or perhaps a nice avocado gelato. Can you imagine?

So you can appreciate my shock upon discovering that Martha, this creature of uncommon refinement, might also be a common white-collar criminal. On December 27, 2001, Stewart dumped 3,928 shares of ImClone Systems (NASDAQ: IMCL) through her broker, Peter Bacanovic of Merrill Lynch. Martha -- the CEO herself of an eponymous multi-million-dollar media empire, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (NYSE: MSO) -- raked in about $288,000 from the sale. The next day, after the market closed, ImClone announced that its cancer drug Erbitux had been rejected by the Food & Drug Administration. It was an explosive bit of news that sent ImClone shares plunging.

Bad news out of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (NASDAQ: MSO) today: CEO Susan Lyne has stepped down after four years as the company's CEO. President of Media Wenda Harris Millard and President of Merchandising Robin Marino will become co-CEOs.

Oh, how quickly things change. Back in April, Martha Stewart Living announced that it was acquiring the Emeril brand for $50 million, with an optimistic Lyne saying, "This acquisition is strategically important to our company as we continue to expand and diversify our business and represents a significant opportunity for us going forward." The company said it expected the acquisition to add $8 million of EBITDA in its first year of operation. Now Lyne is gone without explanation, and the press release didn't even mention the "strategically important" Emeril deal, which has a value of more than 10% of the company's market cap.

Retailer Macy's (NYSE: M) first fiscal quarter wasn't that bad, at least in terms of the analyst game. The company, which competes with mall colleagues such as J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP) and Sears (NASDAQ: SHLD), reported net income of 2 cents per diluted share from continuing operations. The denizens of Wall Street thought the company would lose 2 cents, so management came ahead in this regard by four pennies. Bravo!

However, does this news excite me? Not necessarily. Macy's needs a little help in its sales department. First, the overall top line declined almost 3%, coming in at $5.7 billion. Second, and perhaps even more telling, same-store sales were weak during the quarter, decreasing by 2.6%. And then there's the issue of cash flow. Operational cash flow from continuing operations was excellent compared with last year's quarter since $21 million was generated this time around as opposed to $370 million being used last time around. Nevertheless, when you take into account capital spending, no free cash flow was left over in the first quarter. And cash has been decreasing on the balance sheet. Oh, and gross margin went down, too.

I wasn't too taken by Macy's current earnings report, and I'm not putting the company on my list of investment ideas right now, even though the stock closed up yesterday on the news (heck, the company didn't repurchase any shares last quarter and stated that it didn't see any more share repurchases coming for the rest of the year, so apparently the stock isn't on management's ideas list, either). I think there might be better retail investments out there, such as Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) or Target (NYSE: TGT). Yes, the retailer may have strong associations with Donald Trump and Martha Stewart, but I will not be blinded by such celebrity value.

Disclosure: I don't own shares in any company mentioned here; positions can change at any time.

With its stock sitting in a toilet that would make the housekeeping goddess cringe, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (NYSE: MSO) is looking for something to boost its operations.

Fortune reports it has learned that the company "has held recent talks with two prominent tastemakers, the fashion designer Cynthia Rowley and Jonathan Adler, known for his home décor, with the aim of building multifaceted brands around these personalities that span television, publishing and the internet."

The talks have reportedly broken off, but CEO Susan Lyne has said that she is on the prowl for acquisitions. Acquisitions have a bad habit of failing to generate value for the acquirer, and Fortune notes that "The pressure to do a deal will intensify this year, as MSO prepares to take a hit on several fronts." And therein lies the problem.

The company has historically been unable to generate a profit, and that's not going to get any better in the near future. An acquisition driven by what amounts to desperation is unlikely to change that. And signing a big star will cost a lot money, and the value of that star's brand will tend to aggregate to them, not MSO -- that's the nature of licensing deals.

Bottom line: If you want to buy shares of MSO, it should be because you're bullish on the future of the company as it is now, not because you're hoping that a management team that has failed to generate value can make a killer acquisition that will restore the company to its once high-flying status.

BloggingStocks readers and AOL Money & Finance visitors have spoken, and below are the Best & Worst of 2007. (See the individual posts for full results.)

Company of the Year: Google, internet search provider turned diversified services giant, received 51% of the vote, beating such strong contenders as Apple and Coca-Cola.

Hottest Gadget of the Year: After all the hoopla surrounding the launch of the iPhone, it's no big surprise that it tops this category, with 47% of the vote, besting second place finisher the Nintendo Wii.

Dumbest Celebrity Feud: Rosie O'Donnell's squabbles with Donald Trump (and also with Elizabeth Hasselbeck) garnered 66% of the vote, easily beating out the back-and-forth between Britney Spears and her ex, Kevin Federline.

Hottest Car of the Year: The Cadillac CTS led with 43% of the vote, easily beating the BMW M3 and others in this category.

Dumbest Moment in Business: JetBlue's stranding of passengers on a cramped, grounded airliner for hours netted 51% of the vote.

We recently took a look at the Best & Worst of 2007 in sixteen categories and asked you to vote for your favorites, as well as sharing the reasons for your picks and any other contenders we may have overlooked. And voting is off to a strong start, with more than 100,000 votes in each category so far.

Some categories have shaped up to be close races. Chuck Prince, Bill Ford, and Bob Nardelli each have a little less than a third of the vote for Best CEO Departure of the Year. Britney Spears and Michael Vick are neck and neck as the Celebrity Most Likely to Lose It All, while Lindsey Lohan's relatively low profile recently has garnered her just 6 percent of that vote. In the Most Shameless Attempt at Cashing in on '15 Minutes', Sanjaya Malakar has a slim lead over Howard K. Stern/Larry Birkhead, but poor Chris "Leave Britney Alone!" Crocker has gotten no respect with a mere 6 percent of the vote. McDonald's has a small lead as the Hottest Chain Restaurant, thought Chipotle isn't far behind with more than a quarter of the vote. And while the iPhone has the lead now as the Hottest Gadget of the Year, it and the Nintendo Wii have been trading places as the front runner.

This post was part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst of 2007. Voting has now closed and readers have chosen Martha Stewart as the most annoying money personality of the year. Let us know in the comments if you are pleased with this result.

In last year's Best & Worst in Money awards, Donald Trump was the easy victor in the Most Annoying Money Expert category, securing 44% of the votes, more than twice as much as Suze Orman, Jim Cramer, or Mark Cuban. Trump won by such a landslide that this year we decided to take him out of the running, giving some new personalities a shot at the prize.

So, let's take a look at the contestants for this year's Donald Trump Honorary Most Annoying Money Personality contest:

Maria Bartiromo, CNBC's famed "Money Honey," isn't looking so sweet and spunky these days. She now seems a touch vampish as the apparent centerpiece in a Citigroup scandal that led to the ouster of exec Todd Thomson. Thomson might have earned the CEO spot recently vacated by Chuck Prince if he hadn't offered Bartiromo a spot on a Citi jet to fly to Asia to speak to customers.

Maria's journalistic ethics were called into question for accepting the junket, but CNBC, which nets plenty of advertising from Citi, glossed over the scandal. Criticism of Maria, however, helped raise the profile of CNBC's new sweetheart, Erin Burnett. In September, AOL's Money Face-Off found them virtually neck-and-neck among voters.