Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) could be hurting itself by making prepaid wireless so affordable, but for now, the wireless carrier is cleaning up. In fact, Sprint Nextel's only shining light is the acquisition of wireless customers with its Boost Mobile prepaid brand. But, could Sprint's prepaid service threaten the larger wireless companies like AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T)?

Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) closed at $12.06. Sprint announced pricing and nationwide availability for the Palm Pre phone on June 6. PALM June call option implied volatility is at 79, puts are at 85; below its 26-week average of 99, according to Track Data, suggesting decreasing price movement.

Sprint (NYSE: S) closed at $5.32. S June option implied volatility of 77 is below a level of 93 from May 4 and below its 26-week average of 117, according to Track Data, suggesting decreasing price movement.

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

Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S), the trying to be the"comeback kid" under CEO and telecom vet Dan Hesse, just lost another swath of customers in its latest quarter. The company reported almost an almost $600 million net loss in its latest quarter as its postpaid (contract) customers continue to defect to the competition.

All in all, this quarter wasn't as bad for Sprint as previous quarters. The third-largest wireless carrier in the U.S lost 182,000 wireless customers last quarter, leaving it with under 50 million total wireless customers. Still, the last quarter of 2008 saw Sprint lose about 1.3 million customers, so this past quarter was quite the marked improvement.

Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) continues to lose customers quarter after quarter, even as it has introduced some of the most competitive family calling plans in the U.S. wireless industry.

Perhaps that price competitiveness will win more customers back in 2009, but until then, the carrier will have to rein-in most costs to make up for losing customer revenue. First up: jettisoning $20 million in unused software costs.

Recently, I had the pleasure of attending The Summit Series conference in Aspen with 115 top young entrepreneurs and inspiring philanthropists under the age of 35. This event, founded by Elliot Bisnow of Bisnow Media, has created a community of the world's most influential innovators. "We are inspired by events like the Clinton Global Initiative, TED, and Davos," says Bisnow. $200,000 was raised for the four presenting non-profit organizations including NothingButNets.com, Feed Foundation, Invisible Children, and Grassroots Soccer.

These five start-ups were among the most impressive and interesting business ideas:

When Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) launched the $50 all-you-can-eat wireless plan with its Boost Mobile prepaid brand back in January, it was a shock to the wireless industry. Indeed, prepaid wireless generally is more expensive and less feature-laden than contract wireless in the U.S. But not even contract wireless plans that featured unlimited talking/texting/web access could be found for $50. What was Sprint Nextel trying to do? Cannibalize itself?

Analyst upgrades:

• KeyBanc upgraded Greenbrier (NYSE: GBX) to Buy from Hold as it believes the company has options to forestall covenant violations or bankruptcy, event if conditions deteriorate further.
  
• Friedman Billings upgraded Whole Foods (NASDAQ: WFMI) to Market Perform from Underperform citing low expectations, favorable FTC settlement, progress on cost cutting, and valuation.
  
• JP Morgan believes First Merit (NASDAQ: FMER) is one of the best positioned Midwest banks to weather the storm and notes its compelling valuation and capital levels. The firm upgraded shares to Overweight from Neutral.
• Coca-Cola Enterprises (NYSE: CCE) was raised to Buy from Neutral at Goldman.
  
• Newell Rubbermaid (NYSE: NWL) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Banc of America/Merrill.
  
• Compass Minerals (NYSE: CMP) was lifted to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer.

Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) was the worst telecom merger in recent memory. The $35 billion merger in 2005 was intended to keep Sprint from becoming a smaller player in the wireless market as competitors were combining and becoming wireless powerhouses.

The only problem was that Sprint and Nextel merged but appeared to keep everything separate. In effect, very little "merged" at all.

Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) recently posted another dismal quarter as the third-largest wireless carrier in the U.S. lost over a million customers while finally writing off the last $1.6 billion from the disastrous Nextel merger of 2005. The company continues to have slick marketing, a first-class nationwide wireless network and improved customer service. None of these mean a thing if it can't retain customers and recruit new ones from the competition.

U.S. stock futures were higher Thursday morning, pointing to a stronger start on Wall Street as investors continued to focus on the economy. Before the bell: Futures point to higher start ahead of economic data

Hewlett-Packard Corp. (NYSE: HPQ), reported a 13% quarterly drop in earnings as sales ticked up just 1% due to the recession. Results were inline with estimates, and even though it cut its 2009 guidance, it was still in line with Wall Street's expectations. HPQ shares declined 3.4% in premarket trade.

Sprint Nextel Corp (NYSE: S) posted a $1.6 billion, or 57 cents per share quarterly loss on Thursday and said a total of 1.3 million wireless customers had left its service during the quarter. Revenue fell to $8.4 billion from $9.8 billion a year earlier, and topped the Street's estimate. Sprint expects subscriber losses to improve in 2009. Sprint shares are soaring some 6.6% in premarket trading.

When CEO vet Dan Hesse joined Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) over a year ago, the 20+ year telecom vet probably knew what was in store for him. The third-largest wireless carrier in the U.S. was bleeding subscribers to the competition every quarter, the future of Sprint's 4G high-speed national wireless network was in doubt and the company really did not have a hit product like the iPhone on its shelves.

Add that to the ongoing mess with the Nextel brand and Hesse had one large job to face in the corner office. Although many of those issues still exist today in some form, Hesse will be the first to say that Sprint's in it for the long, successful haul. Still, the company is expected from market analysts to post a quarterly loss of $0.02 per share when it reports Q4 numbers later today. Sprint's Hesse seems to indicate that while Sprint is certainly down, it's nowhere near out.

Today was one of those days that felt as though it was another mini-disaster. Another 600,000 weekly jobless claims were coming to roost. A late day note that the Obama administration was ready to subsidize troubled houses with partial buy-downs of loans to avoid repossession helped to bring on a recovery. While this is far from set in stone and far from being "a done deal" it created a monster to save to otherwise nasty trading day. If you were here all but the last hour it would have been just another miserable day. Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

DJIA: 7932.76, -6.77, -0.09%
S&P500: 835.19, +11.45, +0.17%
NASDAQ: 1541.71, +11.21, +0.73%
Top Analyst Upgrades
Top Analyst Downgrades

JA Solar Holdings Co. Ltd. (NASDAQ: JASO) took a beating after lowering targets to 2009 revenue of $830 to $952 million, under analyst estimates of $993.8 million. The company already cut its revenue projections by more than 20% in November. Here is what we see as the problems in solar energy right now. Shares were off by 16% at $2.51 right before the close.

Fiber-optic entity Qwest Communications (NYSE: Q), whose colleagues include Verizon (NYSE: VZ), AT&T (NYSE: T), and Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S), reported Q4 numbers on Tuesday. Revenues declined by 3%, and adjusted income came in at 12 cents per share, which, according to this article, beat estimates by two pennies.

Well, I have to say, I've been wrong about Qwest. When I last wrote about the tech company, I had a very bearish view. I think Qwest's stock gained a buck since that piece, which is like a huge percentage gain when you consider that the shares closed yesterday at $3.45. The market seems to be liking Qwest's prospects. Going back to that article I cited concerning the earnings beat, I see some positive opinion on Qwest's quarter. I'll agree, it wasn't bad, especially when the economy is considered. The company did well in terms of cash flow: cash from operations for the year was roughly flat while adjusted free cash flow came in at $1.4 billion.

I was cruising around the Web, trying to find an interesting article to share and I found a very juicy morsel over on Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal dealing with NASCAR and its advertisers. While stock-car racing has been around for quite some time, it has enjoyed a surge of popularity of late, including its own demographic from political experts (NASCAR Dads). This popularity has translated into big bucks from advertisers, but what impact will the current market crunch have?

Earnings season was in full bloom this week, and BloggingStocks contributors often made their choices following a company's report. With the exception of very few, the conclusion was to stay away from most stocks, which says a lot about how companies did overall.

Still, there have been a select few that looked like good investment ideas even in these troubled times. So for those who can brave investing during such an earnings season, here are a few ideas from BloggingStocks contributors: