NOTE TO EDITORS: The Following Is an Investment Opinion Being Issued by TheFortuneFinancial.com.

NOTE TO EDITORS: The Following Is an Investment Opinion Being Issued by Stock Market Alerts LLC.

Most of the technology stocks are seeing buying interest as the broader market gained. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 43 points or 2.01% to $2189.20.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) rose 2.52% to $204.85 on 2.30 million shares. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) jumped 2.43% to $583.72 after hitting a new 52-week high at $583.99 earlier in the session.
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) jumped 2.31% to $132.64.

Baidu, Inc.(ADR) (NASDAQ: BIDU) surged 2.30% to $437.25 on moderate volume. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) gained over 1% to $29.94 on 5.66 million shares.

priceline.com Incorporated (NASDAQ: PCLN), a global online travel company, climbed 2.62% to $21.05 after making a new 52-week high at $214.39 earlier.

Semiconductor HOLDRs (ETF) (NYSE: SMH) moved up 1.87% $25.54 on 1.82 million shares.

Search engines have always been at war, but now they have entered a new dimension. First, News Corp's Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch said he wants to make people pay for access to his news websites like The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post and will take off its content from sites like Google.

Can Microsoft's (MSFT) Bing search engine buy its way to the top? According to the Financial Times it may be trying to do just that by paying News Corporation (NWS) and other news content providers to remove themselves from Google (GOOG) and stick with Bing.But don't believe the hype. News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch is among the biggest Google critics out there but there's almost zero chance that his media properties will ever exit Google.Murdoch has long held the notion that Google News is somehow stealing his content. We know this isn't true because Google News doesn't host content ...

• A large run of holiday sales offerings crashed the Ebay (NASDAQ: EBAY) website, causing a major weekend web outage

• Tyson Foods (NYSE: TSN) reported better-than-expected earnings of 28 cents a share, beating Zacks estimates by 2 cents, on revenues of $7.2 billion, which exceeded Zacks estimates of $6.85 billion

• India’s Reliance Industries bid $12 billion in cash for Lyondell Bassell when it exits bankruptcy

• Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is reportedly in discussions with News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWSA) to "de-index" the firm's news websites from Google (NASDAQ: GOOG)

• Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) announced plans to more than double the number of its bottling plants in China over the next ten years as part of its goal to triple sales to the country

• Hershey (NYSE: HSY) trust encouraged the firm to counter Kraft's (NYSE: KFT) hostile, $16.2 billion bid with its own, $17 billion offer

• According to S&P most US banks are failing to meet adequacy standards comfortably enough to avoid ratings downgrades. Both HSBC (NYSE: HBC) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) showed stronger-than-average balance sheets, with UBS (NYSE: UBS) and Citigroup (NYSE: C) well below average

Zacks Investment Research

A Microsoft deal with News Corp and other publishers to pull out of Google's search engine could effectively kill the latter's business strategy. by Erik Sherman

Insider stock transactions – the buying and selling of stock by corporate “insiders” – won’t tell you where the overall stock market is headed. But the analysis of this type of legal insider trading can be a handy indicator when it comes to making buy and sell decisions on individual stocks.[More...]

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) reported a strong quarter at the end of October on the back of resurgent demand in the PC market. But the key issue to watch is the important transition in the company’s major technologies.[More...]

Stock futures are higher, tracking commodities. Oil, gold and other metals are gaining as the dollar pushes lower in a renewed move as reports say weekend Federal Reserve comments put renewed pressure on the greenback. Stocks may trade in choppy fashion in this holiday-shortened week and with much anticipation for the early holiday shopping season and any signs of renewed consumer strength.[More...]

BloggingStocks: Often, we confuse winning with being the best. This isn't always the case. There are plenty of ways to get ahead when you don't have the top product on the market. The smoke-filled backroom meetings may be a thing of the past, but the net effect ... Read more

Two Veteran Wall Street Analysts discuss: (Vern): EXPW, INTU, MANT; (Val): CPWR, FICO, MSFT

We are carefully entering portfolio positions in this environment. (Note: Portfolio positions vs. trading positions) A company that we like for its specialty product is Cubist Pharmaceuticals (CBST). It has made all of our screens recently, but we were reluctant to add it to portfolios as the very recent trends have been down, down, down.  [...] Related posts:

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Schaeffer's analyst Morgan Searcy takes a look at news on the Street before the market open.

Schaeffer's analyst Morgan Searcy takes a look at news on the Street before the market open.

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