Among the stocks expected to see active trading Friday are Ambac, AIG, Liberty Media and Pinnacle Airlines.

With solid monthly gains under its belt, the market turns next week to the traditionally slow month of August with investors keying on the July employment report for more clues about an economic recovery.

  VIEW SLIDESHOW   There’s a sucker born every minute and they’re routinely snapped up by the Internet and late-night TV. We’re not talking about buying clunk-headed products from top-notch companies that then get recalled - think of  Burger King’s (BKC) 1999 discovery that children could choke on the Pokemon toys in its kids’ meals or Mattel’s (MAT) belated realization that 967 000 of its toys contained lead paint along with a host of other toxic chemicals. Just what a growing child needs.No this is a story about 100% pure Grade A turbo-charged gullibility - the kind that drives consumers ...

I've written in the past about Sirius XM’s (SIRI) convertible bonds. There's a 10% Sirius XM bond maturing December 1 of this year with a checkered past and a highly probable happy ending. This bond began its life over 4 years ago when XM Satellite Radio issued it with a 1.75% coupon and a conversion price of $50 per XM share. When you stop laughing read on. Last year a group of the holders of these bonds threatened to sue for immediate full repayment of principal even though the bonds weren't due to mature until December 2009. The holders believed ...

In an infomercial industry that's generated $200 billion in revenue in 2007 there's one undisputed breakout product.That product: a blanket with sleeves.The first mass-marketed sleeved blanket prototype (shockingly there have been several) was the Slanket which was featured on QVC (LINTA) and had $4 million in revenue last year. But Allstar Products Group changed the name trimmed the price and aggressively marketed the freakish shirt-blanket hybrid under a much-more-appetizing name: the Snuggie. The kitschy product was peddled on reputable cable channels like ESPN (DIS) Comedy Central (VIA) and CNN (TWX).Initially pitched as a way to reduce your home heating ...

NOTE TO EDITORS: The Following Is an Investment Opinion Being Issued by Benchmark Journal.