For the second week in a row, Toy Story 3 from the Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) led the pack in US box office receipts. Box office take dropped by about 50%, from $109 million last week to $59 million this week, but that was enough to keep Woody and Buzz and the rest of the crew on top. Worldwide, Toy Story 3 has grossed $226.6 million, fifth in receipts for movies released in 2010 just behind Shrek Forever After from Dreamworks Animation SKG Inc. (NYSE: DWA) and Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA) with $229.3 million.

The housing market continues to wear on homebuilders and housing stocks. Sales of existing homes are flat or down. Sales of new homes are headed down now that federal tax credits have lapsed. To top it off, at least one major home builder is having its books looked at by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

By any measure, the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone 4 is a huge hit. According to Apple, it sold 1.7 million smartphones in the first three days of sales. That's an enormous number. It took the AAPL more than 2 months to sell the first million of the original iPhone.

Italy is proposing a cut of 18% in its feed-in tariff for 2011 and cutting solar subsidies. Two of the biggest players in Italian solar power generation are SunPower Corp. (NASDAQ: SPWRA), which purchased SunRay Renewable Energy earlier this year and MEMC Electronic Materials, Inc. (NYSE:WFR), which is building a 72 megawatt plant in Italy through its SunEdison subsidiary.

It's been a touchy week for stocks: From Monday's high, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has lost about -4%. So was that it? Just another dead-cat bounce within a downtrend measured from April's highs? Or is this just a temporary pullback within a new uptrend? So far, the evidence suggests the more optimistic scenario is playing out. And that makes the current dip a fantastic buying opportunity.

Shares of KB Home (NYSE: KBH) are down more than -7% this morning following the company's second quarter earnings report. KBH earnings included diluted EPS loss of -$0.40 on revenues of $374 million. Analysts had been expecting an EPS earnings loss from KB Home of -$0.30 on revenues of $373.6 million.

Back in February, investor Carl Icahn offered $6 a share to acquire the stock he didn't already own in Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (NYSE: LGF). At the time, Lions Gate shares were trading under $5. Icahn sweetened the offer to $7/share in April, but Lions Gate once again declared the offer inadequate. That offer valued the film maker at about $825 million.

The headline number from BlackBerry smartphone maker Research in Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) first quarter earnings report was solid. EPS reached $1.38, higher than earnings estimates of $1.35. But revenue came in at $4.24 billion, lower than estimates of $4.35 billion, and other numbers also looked weak.

Lennar Corp. (LEN) posted earnings Thursday, saying that it returned to profitability in its fiscal second quarter. Any profit at all is better for the homebuilder than the housing market last year, but investors didn't seem too impressed by the Lennar earnings turnaround as shares LEN stock were off slightly in midday trading.

Software, and now hardware, maker Oracle Inc. (NASDAQ: ORCL) releases fiscal fourth quarter earnings after markets close today. Analysts' earnings estimates for Oracle are that the company will report EPS of $0.54 on revenue of $9.5 billion. That's a nice boost from the year ago EPS of $0.46 for Oracle and revenues of $6.9 billion.

Nike, Inc. (NYSE: NKE) reported fourth quarter 2010 earnings after the market closed yesterday. Diluted EPS came in at $1.08, better than previous earnings estimates of $1.06, and up substantially from Nike earnings of $0.70 in the same period a year ago. Nike revenues for the quarter totaled $5.1 billion, up from $4.7 billion a year ago and in line with earnings report expectations.

The bad housing news got worse this week. New home sales plunged 32.7% in May to their lowest level on record - and April's figures were revised down significantly, to 446,000. The expiration of the home buyers' tax credit is a likely culprit. That does not bode well for homebuilders, housing stocks or ETF funds in the sector.

Airplanes are filling up again and airline stocks are doing pretty well. For the first quarter of 2010, the US Department of Transportation reports that 135 million passengers filled airline seats, compared with about 127 million in the same period a year ago. However, the airlines also bumped about 220,000 ticketed passengers, an even sharper rise compared with about 175,000 in the same period a year ago.

General Motors unit Chevrolet will be launching their brand new electric car, the Volt, in November of this year. GM has set up a program with the U.S. Department of Energy that will give the first 4,400 Volt buyers a 240-volt charging station for their electric vehicles. This could help get the fledgling electric car market off the ground and not just help GM but also automakers like Honda (HMC), Toyota (TM) and Ford (F) that are planning to bring electric vehicles (or EVs) to the market.

Stocks in the euro zone are enjoying a reprieve from the European debt crisis of May in large part due to a successful bond auction in Spain. This euro crisis and Spanish bond auction came amid fear that when Spain came to market with a $4.3 billion debt sale the market would give it the one-fingered salute. Instead, the maximum amount set was sold at reasonable prices to investors looking for some good investment yield.

Simple trading strategies that make sense of the big picture through just a few important economic statistics can serve retirement investors well. When major institutional investors around the world want to understand what's happening in the global economy, they turn to ISI Group in New York. Here's a quick look at their current view of the U.S. economy and stock market, including the best investments to buy now.