Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) closed at $390. The New York Times says: "New mood in antitrust may target Google." The WSJ reported Silicon Valley and GOOG are under a new tough phase antitrust scrutiny. GOOG June option implied volatility is at 32, below its 26-week average of 49 according to Track Data, suggesting decreasing price movement.

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) closed at $19.75. CSCO's Unified Computing System (UCS) is expected to ship in June. CSCO June option implied volatility of 35 is below its 26-week average of 48, according to Track Data, suggesting decreasing price movement.

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

Last night, several media sources said Sirius XM (NASDAQ: SIRI) was going to file for Chapter 11. True or false? The fact is, the media did not know, but the stock could sell off sharply this morning on the rumor.

According to The New York Times, "A bankruptcy would make Sirius XM one of the largest casualties of the credit squeeze." So, the paper has an entire article on the "possibility" that Sirius shareholders will be wiped out today or tomorrow.

According to a transcript of the News Corp (NYSE:NWS) earnings call posted on Alley Insider, advertising revenue at The Wall Street Journal is down 20% so far this year. What does that say for The Boston Globe or The New York Times which are both owned by The New York Times Company (NYSE:NYT)?

McClatchy (NYSE:MNI), the third largest newspaper chain in the US, announced a quarterly operating loss yesterday. That means it no longer has the money to pay interest on its debt. Either creditors will have to take a haircut or the company's papers will have to be sold. off.

It is now clear that no major newspaper in America is making a dime. Some reports say that The Globe loses $1 million a week.

Selling big newspaper may be impossible even if the price for some of them may just be $1. A new owner would have to be willing to shoulder huge operating losses and there may be no recovery in site.

The primary newspapers in some of the nation's largest cities may go away this year.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.

New York Times (NYSE: NYT) columnist and economist Paul Krugman, author of The Conscience of a Liberal, would never be confused with a loyal backer of the economic policies of President Bush.

Still, Krugman, in the academic tradition that argues that a scholar's most important word is "valid," gives President Bush credit where credit is due -- or at least a lack of blame. Krugman says it's true that the U.S. economy is a mess, but it's not true that the bad economy is entirely President Bush's fault.

Krugman outlines the unfortunate reality regarding the U.S. economy's 2001-2008 performance: recession, followed by one of the weakest recoveries since World War II, followed by another slump that technically isn't a recession yet. When President Bush leaves office, Krugman says, the U.S. economy will have created five million jobs, not nearly enough to keep up with population growth. By contrast, 22 million jobs were created during the Clinton Administration.

(Scholastic Press, NYSE: SCHL)'s Harry Potter won't rank on the New York Times (The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT))' best sellers list. You might wonder how could that could possibly be true. It's simple. In a move which is said to have been a knee-jerk reaction to complaints by the sellers and publishers of more "serious" books, The New York Times banished "children's books" to a secondary list of their own, thus clearing the Harry Potter series from its ownership of three spots within the top fifteen positions on best sellers lists. That was supposedly to open those spots for occupancy by more deserving titles.

How yawn inspiring is that? We all know just how well those Harry Potter books have sold. What the whole thing signals to me is that the book watchers of The New York Times were just too stupidly motivated to stop and think that the Potter-displacing category change would only further instill the obviousness of their palpable impertinence.

The Harry Potter books don't need The New York Times, they never did and they never will. As a matter of fact, good literature never needed the Times. The Harry Potter books made J.K.Rowling the wealthiest author on the planet by virtue of Harry's own magic. Frankly, the Times and their top ten list had little to say about that.

More Harry Potter news

Tom Barlow: The Harry Potter Finance Quiz
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter ending: A water cooler cheat sheet
Zac Bissonnette: With Harry Potter done, is it time for Scholastic to sell itself?
Tom Barlow: Rowling safeguards Potter empire
Zac Bissonnette: Is the last book the end of Potter mania?
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter and the Pots of Gold
Barry Summerlin: Harry Potter doesn't even need Muggle marketing
Julie Tilsner: Not even Harry can save bookstores from their fate
Peter Cohan: Harry Potter and the Pot of Gold
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Will Rowling kill off Harry?

Dear Mr. Blake,

The Home Depot (NYSE: HD) is one of the seven stocks I recommended for 2007 (check out my original Dec. 28, 2006 post on Home Depoot). So far it is the underperformer in the group, but I have been sticking with it in hopes that there was light at the end of the tunnel. I own an investment company and last year agreed to share some of my experience with AOL readers.

In the past three weeks I have written several stories about The Home Depot that have been read by thousands of customers, shareholders, employees, investors and business people. The high volume of comments that we have received indicate that your enterprise has lost a tremendous amount of goodwill over the past few years and will have to work very hard to regain it. I am sure the downturn in the housing market is having an impact on the company, but no one seems to be cutting you any slack. To put it simply, The Home Depot has made a lot of people very frustrated and angry. I will not repeat what has been said, but hope you will take the time for a few quick reads. I learned quite a bit, maybe you can, too.

I pledged to my readers that I would forward to you the stories with their comments in the hopes that you or someone representing you would take the time to read them and respond. Perhaps some of this has been relayed to you already. Perhaps these comments just mirror what you have already heard directly from customers, employees and shareholders, but if that's true not much has been done that is visible or tangible to those concerned.

The New York Times business editors probably don't like The Wall Street Journal. The Dow Jones' (NYSE: DJ) paper has more resources and usually gets the big news out first.

Odd then that the business section for The Times appears to have broken the story that the editors at the WSJ were aware of the News Corp (NYSE: NWS) bid for Dow Jones long before they reported the information. The New York Times piece on the subject even raises the key question: "What are a news organization's obligations to report important market-moving news about itself or its parent company before the news is officially disclosed?"

Another issue is that it appears that options activity in Dow Jones stock was high ahead of the announcement of the offer. So, someone probably leaked the information. If the Journal had reported the Murdoch offer news when it was received, this might not have happened.

It is an embarrassing moment for Dow Jones. The argument for not letting Mr. Murdoch in is that he might want to influence the news. Murdoch might decide to put his finger on the scales and decide what he wants readers to see.

Well, the editors at The Wall Street Journal can no longer throw stones at Mr. Murdoch and his meddling. They live in a glass house.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

If you thought that sugar, or rather, what people think of as sugar, was a light and fluffy matter, think again. The New York Times (subscription required) today has a report on the ugly court battle going on between the makers of Splenda and Equal over what each says is false advertising.

Privately held Marisant Worldwide Inc., which makes Equal, accuses rival Splenda of spending millions of dollars convincing the public that its product is made from sugar and is natural. Splenda contends that its product does indeed start with sugar. So nyaaa.

A tiff over language and marketing? More like an argument over who's got the sweetest portion of the market. Equal was number one for a long while, finding its way into thousands of consumer products, as well as being the sweetener used for Diet Pepsi and Diet Coke. But Splenda, made by a unit of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), has captured 62% of the $1.5 billion artificial sweetener market since being introduced in 1999. Sweet nothings? Hardly.

Expect a chemistry lesson in what goes into the making of these two popular sweeteners. If nothing else, this battle might help publicize what's actually in those little blue and yellow packets, and why you might be just as well off dropping a spoonful of the real stuff into your morning cup.

I guess that it's only fitting that in a day where GateHouse Media shares debut in a successful IPO, that we also hear that The Boston Globe might be sold.

GateHouse Media, Inc. (NYSE:GHS), a local newspaper and online publisher, rose 20% in its market debut today before closing up 17.61%, or $3.17, from its increased pricing of $18 a share. More on GHS IPO here.

Today, we also learned of preliminary plans by no other than former General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE) CEO, Jack Welch and advertising exec Jack Connor to buy The Boston Globe from The New York Times Co. (NYSE:NYT).

Investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) helps the two investors with the potential deal. According to some involved in the discussion, JPMorgan has valued the Globe at $550 million to $600 million, well below the $1.1 billion The Times paid for it in 1993. This isn't that surprising since The Globe financial results haven't been stellar to say the least.

Welch and Connor are both Boston residents, which fits the recent trend of returning newspapers to local hands. However, The Times has repeatedly said the The Globe isn't for sale.

[Photo Chris Kirkman]