Now eight large brokerage firms have settled with Auction Rate Securities (ARS) investors. This afternoon Bloomberg News reports Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Deutsche Bank settled with state regulators. Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MER) announced another prong of its settlement earlier in the day.

What are the terms of the settlement for the latest two? Bloomberg writes that "Goldman will buy back $1.5 billion of the securities and pay a $22.5 million fine. Deutsche Bank will redeem $1 billion of debt and was fined $15 million." In addition to the rogues gallery of big ARS issuers who have yet to settle, investigators are targeting medium-sized brokers -- Charles Schwab (NYSE: SCHW), Fidelity Investments and E*Trade Financial Corp. (NYSE: ETFC).

This leaves major ARS issuers lagging behind their peers. Here are three holdouts (with their 2007 municipal ARS issuance in parentheses):

• Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) ($3.7 B)
• RBC Capital Markets ($1.2 B)
• Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH) ($1.1 B)

What are they waiting for?

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.

With great fanfare, General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) announced it was spending $500 million developing the Chevrolet Cruze, a so-called next generation compact car. Investors, who have seen the value of GM's stock slip 60 percent this year, could not have cared less. Shares of the company, which for now is the largest automaker, closed down for the day.

Granted one car is not going to revive General Motors' fortunes, but the Chevrolet Cruze clearly is a step in the right direction. For one thing, it's got a nice design though it certainly did not blow me away. The automaker clearly is trying to build on the popularity of the Chevrolet Cobalt whose sales are up 16 percent year to date. It aso underscores how General Motors is trying to be more efficient.

"The Chevrolet Cruze was designed and engineered by our global teams in Europe and Asia Pacific and will be manufactured in those regions in addition to the assembly plant here in Lordstown, Ohio," said Chief Executive Rick Wagoner in a press release. "Our goal for the Chevrolet Cruze is to lead in fuel economy in this very competitive car segment.

But it's also taking a gamble here.

As the Wall Street Journal points out, "The auto maker believes growing demand for nicer, well-equipped small cars coupled with a dramatic redesign for the Cruze will be enough to command sticker prices well beyond the $15,000 base price of a compact Chevrolet Cobalt."

For Wagoner to keep his job, he's going to have to sell lots of them along with the company's pick-ups and SUVs, which the company and consumers are less enthused about.

Bloomberg News reports that Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MER) has extended its Auction Rate Securities (ARS) redemption offer in response to what I thought was pressure from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo who threatened to take Merrill to court. But what is interesting is that Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin was the one who announced the settlement.

While the politics of this intrigue me, those who held Merrill ARSs (pun intended) care about the terms of the settlement. Bloomberg reports that Merrill "will begin the buyback on October 15 for individuals, nonprofits and small business with $3 million or less on deposit. Redemptions for clients with $100 million or less start on January 15." This Merrill deal adds to the one it announced on August 7 -- a voluntary buyback of $10 billion worth of ARS. Merrill has a total of "30,000 clients who held an estimated $12 billion" according to Bloomberg.

This leaves many major ARS issuers lagging behind their peers. Here are four holdouts (with their 2007 municipal ARS issuance in parentheses):

• Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) ($4.3 B)
• Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) ($3.7 B)
• RBC Capital Markets ($1.2 B)
• Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH) ($1.1 B)

What are they waiting for?

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.

It seemed that our streak of gains wasn't even going to make it two days, but this afternoon buyers were able to come to the rescue. A more than $5 rise in oil was much better tolerated than in weeks past as geopolitical concerns are rising because of US-Russia tensions.

Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:
DJIA 11,428.50 (+11.07)
S&P500 1,277.53 (+2.99)
NASDAQ 2,380.38 (-8.70)
10YR T-Note 3.838% (+0.039%)
52-week lows
Top Analyst Upgrades
Top Analyst downgrades

Barry Diller's IAC/Interactive (NASDAQ: IACID) finally completed its spin-offs into five operating units and completed its effective reverse splits. According to the data, the shares were up 8% at $16.60 in today's final minutes. Here is a full breakdown of the new companies with tickers and operations.

Like its peers, investors have been dour on Evercore Partners Inc. (NYSE: EVR), which is a boutique investment bank. But this week, the firm got some nice support; Mizuho Corporate Bank, Ltd., has agreed to purchase $120 million in senior unsecured notes in Evercore. The deal also includes a warrant to purchase 5,454,545 shares at $22 a piece. In fact, Mizuho has agreed to commit $150 million to Evercore-affiliated funds.

With the credit crunch, it's always good to get a slug of cash. But the Evercore deal is more than just a capital infusion. Basically, the firm will strengthen its existing strategic alliance with Mizuho -- so as to better penetrate the Japanese marketplace. For the most part, cross-border deals are likely to become increasingly important for investment banks.

Actually, Evercore recently announced a strategic alliance with G5 Advisors, which is an investment bank in Sao Paulo. With the strong growth in Brazil, there should be some opportunities to snag assignments.

But such things take time to play out. After all, as seen with Evercore's latest quarterly report, revenues were off 9% to $60.1 million, with profits at $2.1 million, or $0.16 per share.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

Nintendo Co., Ltd. (ADR) (OTC: NTDOY)'s Wii game console continuet to burn up the sales charts, selling hundreds of thousands every month. In fact, the lower-priced and graphically-inferior Wii has blown through almost every sales expectation since its release nearly two years ago. Last month, the Wii was responsible for 49% of all game consoles, and it's sold nearly 30 million since its November 2006 launch. Wow.

But, with success comes a large target on the back. Nintendo has been named in a patent lawsuit claiming the Japanese gaming company. Hillcrest Technologies says that Nintendo has violated various patents it holds dealing with the wireless, dimension-aware gaming controller that ships with every Wii console.

The "Wiimote," as it has been dubbed, uses gyroscopes, Bluetooth wireless technology, and is incredibly simplistic on the surface (there are a minimum of buttons, unlike the competition). But inside the Wiimote, the technology making it possible to swing it like a tennis racket is quite complex. Hillcrest's claim rests primarily on wireless technology it invented to allow the physical motion of a controller to select items on a viewing monitor. Hillcrest has already licensed its technology to several gaming companies, but the question remains: why did it take almost two years to bring the lawsuit against Nintendo? Something smells here.

Investors have to find this frustrating. I know I hate it when this happens to one of my stocks. GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) issued its Q2 numbers today. The numbers were a thing of beauty for the most part. Yet, the stock goes nowhere. And yes, I know this is a bad market day, but still, I thought a little pop was in order. As it is, shares are down about 1% as I write.

Sales increased almost 35% to $1.8 billion. The bottom line saw an increase of well over 100%, coming in at $0.34 per diluted share. According to this article, expectations were for $0.28 per share. So, do you see where I'm coming from? Expectations were beat, and growth was stellar... come on, investors, give the stock a bid! Granted, the article mentioned something I noticed as well: the gross margin declined. Okay, it declined. But same-store sales simply rocketed like a spacecraft at a growth rate of 20% during Q2. That has to be worth something ahead of the holiday-selling season. Games from Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS), Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI), and Nintendo Co., Ltd. (ADR) (OTC: NTDOY) powered the quarter. And guess what? They're going to power the next two quarters, too. We have new iterations of Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, and Rock Band to look forward to. Oh, and Lego Batman. Seriously, don't discount that latter title. A lot of Sony Corporation (ADR) (NYSE: SNE) PlayStation 3s and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) Xbox 360s will move off shelves, and that little system called the Wii is going to be the hottest console again this Christmas. Oh, and then there's the DS. GameStop sells 'em all.

GameStop beat its own guidance, and I think it has a great chance of continuing to beat its own guidance in the near future. That aforementioned article mentions that investors are concerned with slowing growth in the video-game universe. Okay, point well taken, I suppose. But GameStop is such a great brand in its sector, and consumers have come to know it as the go-to place for entertainment software. And as hardware continues to become cheaper, and as the installed user base rises, GameStop should benefit. The shares haven't done well this year, declining over 30% on the year-to-date timeframe as of this writing. The stock is much closer to its 52-week low than to its 52-week high. It's weak. But, I also think it's cheap. If you have a long time horizon, you may want to check GameStop out. If you're a quicker trader, you may want to wait for the stock to come back about $5 toward its 52-week low (if that happens).

Disclosure: I own Activision Blizzard; positions can change at any time.

Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) were named as two of the top companies in customer satisfaction recently by an ACSI index released out of the University of Michigan. This is the same study that pounded U.S. automakers in favor of foreign auto brands.

In the index that measured e-business companies, two of the most powerful brands in technology rose to the top. It's no surprise Apple made the top of the list, with its capability to mesmerize iPod, iTunes and iPhone customers. The company is also selling more Macintosh computers than ever -- and customers are buying them as fast as Apple can make them.

It's also hard to think that any web company can catch Google. The world's largest internet search company has such a large first-mover advantage that it's next to inconceivable that any competitor will be able to offer a better product in such a way that Google will lose a decent chunk of market share. It, along with Apple, has an extremely high customer satisfaction rating. Even if there are better products, perception is reality -- and the perception is that Google offers the information as fast as it can and connects the searcher with the information they need, and with quality.

At least two U.S. brands top their respective list, while U.S. automakers slide further down the pile of irrelevancy in a changed age of fuel efficiency and the perception of better foreign brand auto quality.

On August 14th, Skechers USA, Inc. (NASDAQ: SKX) made public its offer to acquire Heelys, Inc. (NASDAQ: HLYS) at a price of $5.25 per share. At the time I wrote that the offer seemed low, and Heelys' management seems to agree, issuing a press release stating that "The Board believes the $5.25 offering price does not reflect the value of Heelys and that entering into discussions with Skechers based on their unsolicited proposal is premature at this time."

Today Skechers shot back with its own press release, with chairman and CEO Robert Greenberg stating that "We are particularly disappointed that, after repeated contacts over several months, Heelys will not agree even to discussions or provide us with an opportunity to conduct due diligence. . . We are very interested in continuing our dialogue and, as discussed in Skechers' letter of August 13, we may also be prepared to refine our proposal if additional value can be identified during the due diligence."

So why won't Heelys at least engage in discussions, given that Skechers is indicating that it might raise its bid? This looks like a replay of the Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) - Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) takeover battle on a much smaller scale, with Heelys' brass not inclined to talk about a deal, even if it is in the best interests of shareholders.

If Skechers gets bored with the slow pace of negotiations and walks away, Heelys will have some splainin' to do. Given that the company went public at over $30 per share and now sits at $5.25, it's pretty clear that the management team doesn't know enough about shareholder value to reject a takeover offer without further discussions.

Biovail (NYSE: BVF), a poster child for accounting fraud and the "blame it on short sellers!" diversion strategy, has hired yet another chief financial officer, announcing that Peggy Mulligan will take over for interim finance chief Adrian A. De Saldanha, who had held the position since March.

In March, Biovail paid $10 million to the SEC to settle charges related to improper accounting and false and misleading statements. Former CFOs Brian Crombie and Kenneth G. Howling were implicated in that mess. So Ms. Mulligan has a tough act to follow: she'll have to produce results legally!

Shares of Biovail are trading near their lowest price of this millennium, understandable given that phony accounting and vast conspiracy theories are no longer there to prop up the stock price.

Biovail plans to spend more than $600 million on research and development over the next five years, in an effort to create real shareholder value.

Airlines globally could lose $6.1 billion in 2008, on soaring oil prices and financial market dislocation, the head of the International Air Transport Association said, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday (subscription required).

Giovanni Bisignani, managing director of the IATA, which represents 230 airlines, called the sector "a fragile industry in a crisis" and that it's "bracing for more situations of airlines collapsing," due to high fuel prices and lower revenue, The Journal reported. Further, the air travel slowdown, once thought to be contained to developed nations, has spread to global air travel's plum: Asia, he added.

Airline slowdown could hurt Boeing, Airbus

Stock analyst and frequent flier C. Leonard Bauer told BloggingStocks Thursday if the Asian hemisphere is slowing, to go along with sluggish revenue statistics in Europe and the United States, the slowdown "would have wide implications, not just for airlines, but for airplane manufacturers Boeing and Airbus."

"Further consolidation globally, was a given, particularly in nations like India, which had too many airlines even before the global economy slowed, but the concern now is that national carriers will postpone or cancel plane orders," Bauer said. "From a U.S. perspective, that could mean bad news for Boeing. And what's bad news for Boeing is bad news for the U.S economy. Airplane sales have been one of the U.S. economy's few bright spots." [Bauer added that he does not own shares in or have a rating on any airline or airplane manufacturer. However, Bauer does have frequent flier miles/points in American Airlines (NYSE: AMR).]

Third Point Management fund manager Daniel Loeb told his investors last night the firm is the target of a formal investigation being conducted by the Securities & Exchange Commission. According to Loeb, the subject of the investigation is his communications with other hedge funds.

The investigation appears to be an outgrowth of a conspiracy theory that a cadre of hedge funds engaged in nefarious campaigns of rumor-mongering and aggressive short-selling aimed at bringing down companies like Bear Stearns. The fact that the companies crying foul have lost billions and suffered from serious transparency problems is deemed irrelevant; bad management doesn't destroy companies, short sellers do, according to this line of thinking.

Loeb wrote that questions about the fund's communications were first raised during a routine audit last year, but added that its lawyers had said that such communications were legal under federal securities laws.

Burger King (NYSE: BKC - option chain) shares are falling today after posting a fourth-quarter profit of $51 million, or 37 cents per share, beating analysts' estimates of 34 cents per share. However, BKC shares are falling this morning after the company reported its total restaurant margins decreased to 13.1 percent in the quarter, hurt largely by higher commodity costs like more expensive beef and chicken. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on BKC or other similar stocks like MCD or YUM.

This morning, BKC opened at $27.29. So far today the stock has hit a low of $25.17 and a high of $27.29. As of 12:21, BKC is trading at $26.03, down $1.42 (-5.2%). The chart for BKC looks neutral and S&P gives BKC a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold ranking.

For a bearish hedged play on this stock, I would consider an October bear-call credit spread above the $30 range. A bear-call credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of call options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverage nice returns. For this particular trade, we will make a 7.5% return in three months as long as BKC is below $30 at October expiration. Burger King would have to rise by more than 15% before we would start to lose money. Learn more about this type of trade here.

BKC hasn't been above $30 for more than a few days out of the past year and has shown resistance around $29 recently.

Brent Archer is an options analyst and writer at Investors Observer.

DISCLOSURE: Mr. Archer owns and/or controls diversified portfolios of long and short stock and option positions that may include holdings in companies he writes about. At publication time, Brent neither owns nor controls positions in BKC.

It would appear to be axiomatic to say that there are few benefits from an oil price over $100 per barrel. Nevertheless, during oil's latest climb to the stratosphere, some have argued that a high oil price is 'net-positive for the global economy,' or 'a long-term good thing.'

Economist Glen Langan has a word for insta-analysis like the above. "Misguided," he calls them.

Not that Langan is an ardent advocate of oil use; hardly. Would that the developed and developing world could shift today to an alternate, renewable, and more environmentally-friendly energy form, he says. But the world can't, and as is some times the case in social science circles, "the normative influences the empirical," he says, and leads to curious conclusions like an 'oil shock being net-positive for the global economy.'

For the record: an oil shock is never net-positive for the global economy, Langan argues.

There are some benefits, to be sure, such as increased conservation, increased research on alternate/renewable energy forms, a transfer of some wealth to some developing nations and, of course, astounding increases in wealth in those connected to oil and oil services, but the overall effect is net-negative. Oil traded Thursday up $5.46 to $121.42 per barrel.

Japan's yen resumed its rise against higher-interest currencies Thursday, suggesting that the prospect of additional credit market losses continues to lower investors' confidence in global growth and performing assets.

The yen rose as institutional investors continued to decrease their use of the carry trade.

In a carry trade, investors, especially institutional investors, borrow funds in a country with a low interest rate (or borrowing cost) and buy assets in a country where returns are higher. The investment can take many forms, including stocks, bonds, funds, or even the higher-interest currency itself.

The yen strengthened about 1.6 yen to 160.71 versus euro, about 3 yen to 201.95 versus the British pound, and about 1 yen to 108.20 versus the dollar.

Another big mortgage write-off ahead?

Currency trader Andrew Resnick told BloggingStocks Thursday sentiment is building in the foreign exchange and other markets that there will be "another, major housing-related write-off by a bank or series of banks in the U.S. or U.K, or possibly Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) or Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) problems."