Target's focus on affordable fashion in apparel and housewares has turned from blessing to curse.

Nordstrom's results indicate that tangible signs of a sales and profit recovery are starting to occur.

An ocean of black led to a sea of red with Wall Street declining as EIA data showed oil inventories up and demand off. For related content see The Untapped Energy Riches of Uzbekistan. The Dow saw its win streak snapped at six and the S&P 500 posted its worst percentage performance of the month while the beleaguered buck had its best day since August. If video killed Radio One (ROIAK) (-4.68%) clearly Coinstar (CSTR) killed the video star as evidenced in Blockbuster’s (BBI) 12.05% earnings related after-hours implosion. By contrast Disney (DIS) rose 2.24% in extended trading on strong results even these days ...

Profits are up at MasterCard (MA) thanks to a greater number of transactions as consumers continue to shift to debit and credit cards and away from cash and checks.MasterCard says the number of transactions processed in the third quarter increased 7.6% from the same period a year ago to 5.8 million. However the volume of purchase made by cardholders remained nearly flat. Earnings of the nation’s major credit card companies -- MasterCard Visa (V) and American Express (AXP) – suggest that the worst of the economic slump may be behind us. But it’s far from over."The economic downturn has ...

U.S. stock market futures fell on Wednesday as investors absorbed another busy day of earnings news, along with the latest figures on durable-goods orders.

First Program That Bundles Alerts, Offers and Locator Service to U.S. Bank Visa Cardholders

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