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

• AK Steel Holding Corp. (NYSE: AKS) reported better-than-expected Q3 results but shares fell anyway.
• Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) posted strong Q3 results but shares sold off on a disappointing guidance.
• Burger King Holdings Inc. (NYSE: BKC) said lower Q1 earnings fell short of analysts expectations.
• Dreamworks Animation SKG Inc. (NYSE: DWA) topped Q3 profit and revenue estimates, lifting shares.
• Geron Corp. (NASDAQ: GERN) posted a narrower-than-expected Q3 loss, sending shares sharply higher.
• Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (NYSE: HMC) reported lower Q2 earnings and sales on weak demand for cars.

Today was potentially a pivotal day. There was a technician calling for a possible peak in the S&P and that was partly on yesterday's dollar strength. Then came the disappointing consumer confidence data. Amazingly, we had a very mixed market close picture today depending on which group of stocks you were looking at.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 9,882.17 +14.21 (0.14%)
S&P 500 1,063.41 -3.54 (-0.33%)
Nasdaq 2,116.09 -25.76 (-1.20%)

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Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU), China's leading search engine, sold off during Monday's after-hours session after the earnings report for the third quarter was issued. When you're a theoretical growth company like Baidu, missing estimates on the guidance side is never a good thing to do.

Nevertheless, Baidu delivered in Q3 itself. Sales skyrocketed 39%. Net income per share exploded over 40% to the upside, coming in at $2.07 per share on a GAAP basis. Adjusting for items, the company earned $2.16 per share. Earnings.com gives an expectation of $1.81 for per-share profit.

Kai-Fu Lee, head of Google's China operations, resigned on Friday. This brings to a close four years of controversy, as the search engine giant censored its search results in order to pick up some market share in the largest internet market in the world (by population).

The change follows fresh debate within Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) -- which claims to live by the motto "don't be evil" -- about whether to exit the Chinese market. The internal discussion is the result of another round of conflict with government authorities in China.

In bold move, China's Ministry of Culture has set new rules for music sold online, acording to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required).

The rules require music sites to seek approval from censors for all foreign songs they distribute.

The new rules also affect music providers such as Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU).

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

• Aeropostale Inc. (NYSE: ARO) strong Q2 results beat expectations due to rising same-store sales.
• Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) Q3 earnings topped low expectations and revenue declined.
• Analog Devices Inc. (NYSE: ADI) posted better-than-expected Q3 results but shares fell on weaker margins.
• Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) CEO said its new advertising efforts will boost sales over the long run.
• Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE: BKS) had a better-than-expected Q2 profit but same-store sales fell.
• BJ's Wholesale Club Inc. (NYSE: BJ) reported solid Q2 numbers and raised its full-year guidance.

Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) CEO Robin Li has high hopes for Phoenix Nest, his company's new advertising system. While many investors worried that Phoenix Nest, launched in April, would negatively impact revenue, Li thinks that the system will actually boost sales over the longer term.

In an interview with Dow Jones, Li confessed that revenue has suffered modestly since the launch of Phoenix Nest, primarily due to the fact that Baidu has been offering advertisers incentives to switch to the new system. However, he added, "Going forward, Phoenix Nest will have meaningful positive impact to our revenue."

"Inflationary fears and the desire to generate higher returns in non-dollar assets should boost BRIC stocks (Brazil, Russia, India and China)," says Chuck Carlson in his The DRIP Investor.

"Despite the run-up this year, BRIC stock markets are still reasonably valued. Russia, India, and Brazil all trade at price/earnings ratios similar to the U.S.

"And while China's stock market does trade at a premium to the U.S., China's economic growth will swamp that of the U.S. this year and for the foreseeable future.

Today was one of those strange days where stocks were gapping up on overseas market strength, but little domestic news. There were no economic numbers today, and the group in focus today was all the technology news.

Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 8,539.73 -15.87 (-0.19%)
S&P 500 921.23 +2.86 (0.31%)
Nasdaq 1,827.47 +19.75 (1.09%)

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Today had all the earmarks in line for another solid day of sell-offs, yet the markets held ground considering the tone this morning. The good news was low inflation, the lowest in over 50 years.

But agriculture stocks were hammered on overseas competitive news about weak pricing and demand. Then came a banking downgrade from the S&P playing catch-up. Despite the mixed performance at the end of the day, this felt like a win. Here are the unofficial closing bell levels:

DJIA: 8,497.18 (-7.49)
S&P 500: 910. 71 (-1.26)
NASDAQ: 1,808.06 (+11.88)

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Baidu.com (NASDAQ: BIDU - option chain) shares are rising today after a market research firm reported that the company accounted for 74.1 % of China internet search queries in the Q1 2009, up from 72% in the fourth quarter of 2008. If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on BIDU.

BIDU opened this morning at $268.19. So far today the stock has hit a low of $266.80 and a high of $184.77. As of 11:40, BIDU is trading at $283.78 up $19.98 (7.6%). The chart for BIDU looks bearish and S&P gives BIDU a negative 2 STARS (out of 5) sell ranking.

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

• Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) reported better-than-expected Q1 earnings as revenues surged in the quarter.
• Burger King Holdings Inc. (NYSE: BKC) just beat Q3 expectations despite weak same-store sales growth.
• Corn Products International Inc. (NYSE: CPO) Q1 results were dragged down by higher corn costs.
• Dow Chemical Co. (NYSE: DOW) Q1 earnings sank on falling sales, job cuts and acquisition costs.
• Eastman Kodak Co. (NYSE: EK) reported a deeper-than-expected Q1 loss and suspended its dividend.
• Energizer Holdings Inc. (NYSE: ENR) posted better-than-expected Q2 earnings but revenue declined.

Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU), a Chinese equity dedicated to internet search, has been one hot stock. As of this writing, shares of the company are up over 90% over the three-month frame! Talk about being in the green. And this is a stock that closed on Monday at $224.86.

Baidu reported Q1 earnings after the bell yesterday, and the release was full of high growth rates (the growth rates should be high considering the run-up of the stock). Revenues increased over 40%, operating profit went up by over 30%, and net profit rose over 20%. On a per-share, adjusted basis, Baidu delivered 86 cents per share for its investors, beating analysts' expectations by two pennies.

This post was written by Minyanville contributor Sean Udall. Sean holds position in RIMM, VMW, SUPX.

• Goldman Sachs upgraded Research in Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM)saying to buy in front of EPS. I couldn't agree more and in fact was going to say that today. Be that as it may, I doubled my RIMM long into yesterday's weakness and plan to hold into/through EPS report. My quick take is that RIMM could have one of the better reports relative to all the negative analyst actions and commentary in tech and the overall market.
  
  
• One of my themes for this upcoming EPS season is to look for stocks that have had the most negative analyst commentary coming into the quarter, as no one these days is looking at things like Price/Sales, Price/Book or Price to normalized earnings.
  
  

Analyst upgrades:

• Citigroup upgraded Phillips-Van Heusen (NYSE: PVH) to Buy from Hold following the company's Q1 results as it believes management is executing well in the current environment and that the company could meet the high end of guidance. The firm raised its price target to $24 from $19.
  
• Friedman Billings upgraded Cliffs Natural (NYSE: CLF) to Outperform from Market Perform as it believes capacity utilization has stabilized and CLF's valuation is attractive at current levels. The firm raised its price target to $27 from $23.
  
• Thomas Weisel believes demand at Microchip's industrial (NASDAQ: MCHP) customers has troughed and that market share loss concerns are unwarranted. The firm upgraded shares to Overweight from Market Weight and raised its target to $27 from $19.
• CBS Corp (NYSE: CBS) was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Goldman.
  
• U-Store It Trust (NYSE: YSI) was raised to Outperform from Neutral at Baird.
  
• Ener1 (NASDAQ: HEV) was lifted at Banc of America/Merrill to Buy from Neutral.