While these figures don't exactly inspire confidence in Yahoo's abilities or the success of its future plans, they did beat market forecasts by about 2 cents per share. But its simply not enough to turn the tide in Yahoo's favor and put the brakes on Microsoft's takeover bid. Speaking of which, the language from Yahoo Execs. seems to have softened a bit.

Wall Street advanced Monday following reports of potential corporate deals -- including news that Washington Mutual might get a $5 billion investment from private equity firms.

Associated Press - A person familiar with Microsoft's bid for Yahoo says the software company is evaluating its offer in light of the economic climate and the Internet pioneer's deteriorating business. Yahoo fell nearly 5% in after hours trading.

Yahoo stock is on its way down - A long, long way down. Citigroup analyst says Microsoft has to increase bid. Wall Street Journal says Microsoft has no such plans. So one of them has to be wrong. Right? Wrong. They could both be right. It's just a matter of 'timing' and 'two-timing'.

It’s being reported by CNBC that JPMorgan has offered to buy Bear Stearns at $15-$20 per share. Currently, Bear Stearns’ management is meeting to consider the sale of their company. If BSC doesn’t accept, could we see them go bankrupt?

Bear has a few days to clinch a deal, or face bankruptcy. The list of possible buyers include an SWF fund, JPMorgan Chase, and even Warren Buffett. So which one of these is going to end up with Bear?

This article takes a look at the cause of the current trouble in leveraged loans. It explores how banks got into this mess and how we should think about the problem.

Microsoft Corp. Friday offered to buy Yahoo Inc. for $44.6 billion at $31 a share in cash and stock..The two companies have had held informal discussions in the past...A combined Microsoft-Yahoo would still trail Google in market share and search advertising... Yahoo shares shoot up...

According to a SeekingAlpha alert that I received, Microsoft said Tuesday that it will offer
$1.2 billion in cash for Fast Search and Transfer, a big player in the enterprise search market.

The move is sure to shake up the enterprise search market, which thus far has been dominated by a series of smaller players like FAST, Autonomy and Vivisimo. Google has made some inroads, but for

By DAMIAN PALETTA, VALERIE BAUERLEIN and JAMES R. HAGERTY
January 10, 2008 2:37 p.m.

Bank of America Corp. is in advanced talks to acquire struggling Countrywide Financial Corp., according to people familiar with the situation.