Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Accenture Ltd. (NYSE: ACN) beat earnings expectations but revenue was hurt by currency effects.
• Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBY) strong Q1 results beat estimates but same-store sales fell.
• CKE Restaurants Inc. (NYSE: CKR) lower Q1 earnings and strong sales both topped expectations.
• ConAgra Foods Inc. (NYSE: CAG) higher Q4 earnings were in line with expectations, and shares slipped.
• Darden Restaurants Inc. (NYSE: DRI) Q4 results were higher, but it warned of continuing challenges.
• Hennes & Mauritz (OTC: HMRZF) reported strong Q2 numbers, though same-stores sales slipped.

Today was an unusually active day for extremely volume increases in several stocks which traded on news and rumors.

Shares in Sequenom (NASDAQ: SQNM) jumped over 10% on takevover rumors.

Rite Aide (NYSE: RAD) moved higher by 5% on larger than normal volume as it beat earnings estimates and Monsanto (NYSE: MON) traded up on strong numbers and took a number of agriculture stocks with it. Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) also benefited from earnings above Wall Street forecasts.

Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) traded higher as RBC upped its price target to $18 from $14, and MEMC (NYSE: WFR) fell on a downgrade from JPMorgan.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at VSInvestor.com.

Even the mighty Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) can't seem to withstand the global recession, as IT budgets continue to tighten. At the same time, the strong U.S. dollar has taken a toll.

In fact, Oracle's fiscal fourth quarter saw the first decline in revenues since 2002. That is, revenues fell 5.2% to $6.86 billion. Profits also decreased 7.2% to $1.89 billion.

Another problem: license revenues. These fell by about 13% for the quarter. Again, this is an indication that it's tough to get new business.

This week brings a small flurry of end-of-the-calendar-quarter earnings reports. And for the most part, the expectations of the analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters aren't very high. Companies expected to report declining earnings in the most recently concluded quarter include America's Car-Mart Inc. (NASDAQ: CRMT), Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBY), ConAgra Foods Inc. (NYSE: CAG), Jabil Circuit Inc. (NYSE: JBL), Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc. (NYSE: JTX), Monsanto Co. (NYSE: MON), and Sonic Corp. (NASDAQ: SONC).

Today's announcement that Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) would acquire Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) for $7.4 billion worth of cash left me scratching my head. The rationale? Something that Oracle's president calls non-GAAP earnings. Does this mean that Oracle's first acquisition of a hardware company makes strategic sense? I don't know.

I am not sure what non-GAAP earnings are, but it sounds like it is a special kind of accounting meant to justify a deal that would not look good on a GAAP basis. Safra Catz, Oracle's president, estimates that on a non-GAAP basis, the deal will add $1.5 billion in "non-GAAP operating profit" in the first year and $2 billion to that new measure in future years.

Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) will be acquired by Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) for $9.50. JAVA May call option implied volatility of 118 was above its 26-week average of 89, according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.

ORCL is recently down 80 cents to $18.20 in pre-open trading. ORCL April option implied volatility of 49 is near its 26-week average of 52, according to Track Data, suggesting non-directional movement.

Option Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com

This post was written by Minyanville contributor Sean Udall.

Professor Udall,

I don't know much about the fundamentals of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), but I have been watching it trade for the past few months and that is one stock that, simply from the way it is trading, looks like it is in trouble. What are your thoughts?

-- Jessica

With billions in the bank and a broad technology platform, Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) has been fairly clear that a big priority is M&A. And this week, we got another deal: the $105 million purchase of Tidal Software.

Tidal develops sophisticated data center software solutions -- helping to manage diverse applications, such as from Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), SAP (NYSE: SAP) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT).

Of course, Tidal's business is a nice complement for Cisco, which is getting aggressive in the server market.