MAJOR PAPERS:

• Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC) is making a $2 billion equity investment in Countrywide Financial Corporation (NYSE: CFC), people familiar with the situation told the Wall Street Journal (subscription required).
• Ticket seller Ticketmaster, which is owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ: IACI), has halted talks with concert promoter Live Nation Inc (NYSE: LYV), failing to reach a new, long-term agreement. The talks have "grown acrimonious" over the last year and a half, say people close to the situation, with Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino threatening to start his own ticketing company rather than renewing with Ticketmaster, according to the Wall Street Journal.
• Home Depot Inc's (NYSE: HD) sale of its wholesale supply division to a group of private equity firms is in doubt, due to uncertainty about the willingness of three investment banks to fund the deal, reported the Financial Times (subscription required).
  
• The Financial Times reported that Motorola Inc (NYSE: MOT) lost more than 7% of market share in the handset market in Q2, according to new figures.

OTHER PAPERS:

• Private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts has reportedly postponed its $1.25B initial public offering, after investors showed little interest in the IPO, reported the U.K. Times.

Yesterday, comScore released the July market share data for the search engine industry. The results were not pretty for Yahoo Inc (NASDAQ: YHOO), with its share standing at just 23.5% for the month, way behind Google Inc's (NASDAQ: GOOG) 55.2% share of the market. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) stood at 12%, IAC/InterActiveCorp's (NASDAQ: IACI) Ask.com at 4.7% and Time Warner Inc (NYSE: TWX) at 4.4%.

While the market share data was being released, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was telling Bloomberg that Yahoo would be an expensive acquisition. However, Ballmer may be positioning Microsoft to once again approach the No. 2 search engine company. Earlier this year, news reports circulated that Microsoft and Yahoo were in partnership discussions.

By combining its own sites with that of Yahoo's, Microsoft's market share would quickly jump to 36% market share -- not too bad. With the Internet just over ten years old, paying $50 billion for that much market share may be the best money Microsoft can spent. To date, the PC-centric software giant has had a tough time with most of its Internet initiatives. Conversely, Yahoo CEO, Jerry Yang, has to realistically assess its ability to catch up to the Google machine.

At the end of the day, the Silicon Valley-based search company may have to swallow its pride and hook up with the much despised Washington-based software giant. Microsoft would get to utilize its deep bench of software engineers with a powerful and underutilized portal, while Yahoo would get to move away from its foray into the media business and move back to being a technology driven company.

It may be their last chance to survive and thrive in the Internet era before having their lunches completely eaten by Google.

Every time you look at your children and wish they would grow up and stop being so immature, remember that the two are not synonomous. Case in point -- eBay Inc (NASDAQ: EBAY). The market-leading auction website left Google Inc's (NASDAQ: GOOG) AdWords advertising system because it was miffed that Google planned a party the same day as eBay's annual user celebration in Boston.

Well after crying at its party, eBay came crawling back, apparently realizing that although it has other options -- Yahoo Inc (NASDAQ: YHOO), IAC/InterActiveCorp's (NASDAQ: IACI) Ask.com, and Microsoft Corporation's (NASDAQ: MSFT) MSN.com -- none are nearly as good as AdWords. EBay's inability to stay away serves as an example of Google's strength in the Internet advertising market.

Of course, this is not what eBay is claiming. EBay spokesman Hani Durzy said, "Overall the takeaway for us was that we weren't as dependent on AdWords as some out there may have thought... Other partners -- Yahoo and AOL and MSN -- really stepped up and provided a lot of value. And natural search continues to drive a lot of valuable traffic to the site."

Empty words, since the actions don't coincide.

Yahoo Inc (NASDAQ: YHOO), once again, did little to impress investors with last night's earnings release. Revenue came in a little light, EBITDA beat by a bit, and EPS came in a penny shy.

What was more worrisome was EBITDA guidance just simply wasn't good. EBITDA is forecast to come in at $440 to $500 million, a wide range, although still in the range of the consensus estimate of $490. However, just barely hitting analysts' targets is not a sign of a quality growth company.

Terry Semel's language continued to be broad and continues to target old-time media partners such as Viacom inc (NYSE: VIA) and newspapers.

As we have been blogging ad infinitum, Yahoo's future is dependent on the success of its new Project Panama advertising platform. While one would expect some period of transition, it appears the transition is proving more difficult than investors would have expected. Analysts' estimate increases during the past week appear to be misplaced.

Whether it was coincidence or not, it was interesting how on the morning Yahoo came out with uneventful results, news reports are saying Time Warner Inc (NYSE: TWX) is getting ready to do a large Internet acquisition. Could it be Yahoo? Merge one struggling Internet company with Time Warner's AOL struggling unit.

If Yahoo is going to do it right, let Barry Diller of IAC/ Interactive Corp (NASDAQ: IACI) take it over. Barry always succeeds. He could easiily succeed at buying and turning Yahoo around.

I'd stay with Yahoo -- its position on the web is too powerful to pass up. Someone at some point will come along and right this wrong.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• The Wall Street Journal's (subscription required) "Heard on the Street" column suggested that Deere and Company (NYSE: DE), which has risen 40% since lsat September, may be about to level off as analysts believe the positive outlook is already baked in to the stock price.
• The Wall Street Journal reported that Sanofi-Aventis ADS's (NYSE: SNY) Acomplia, a "miracle weight loss pill", is looking less like a miracle among repeated FDA delays and European restrictions.
• Barclays plc ADS (NYSE: BCS) says it would walk away rather than overpay for ABN Amro Holdings (NYSE: ABN), and rejected suggestions that it might then be vulnerable to a takeover itself, according to the Financial Times (subscription required).
• The Financial Times reported that Sony Corporation's (NYSE: SNE) PlayStation 3 video game console has had a record-breaking launch in Europe, selling about 600,000 consoles in its first two days.
• The Financial Times reported that U.S. drugmaker Merck & Company Inc (NYSE: MRK) won a restatement of its patent for once-weekly Fosamax treatment from the European Patent Office.
• The Financial Times interviewed Barry Diller, the CEO of InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ: IACI), who believes corporate governance may be pushing U.S. companies to go private.

OTHER PAPERS:

• The New York Times reported that billionaires Eli Broad and Ronald Burkle may be back in the running to buy The Tribune Company (NYSE: TRB), which has responded to a request for additional financial information about the company from the pair.
• The Economic Times reported that Indian telecom operator Hutchison Essar is looking at outsourcing its IT operations to International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM), in a deal that would be worth $1.4B to $1.6B, according to sources.