Peeking out of the cloud of earnings reports this week were several high-profile solar stocks. On Monday, we saw shining quarterly earnings from Energy Conversion Devices Inc. (NASDAQ: ENER) and ReneSola Ltd. (NYSE: SOL). Tuesday brought sunny results from JA Solar Holdings Co. Ltd. (NASDAQ: JASO) and LDK Solar Co. Ltd. (NYSE: LDK), but spoiling this week's solar coming out party was SunPower Corp. (NASDAQ: SPWRA), which reported disappointing profits. So, what's with the sun spots in the sector? Are things looking brighter for solar, or should you stay inside and avoid the sector's harmful rays?

Though first-quarter earnings season is drawing to a close, there are still some earnings reports trickling in that are showing lots of free cash. Coupled with these reports are also some announcements that stocks will be raising dividends. Stocks boosting their dividend yield this week include Union Pacific Corp. (NYSE: UNP), PepsiCo Inc. (NYSE: PEP), Occidental Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: OXY), Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE: CLF), Keithley Instruments, Inc. (NYSE: KEI), Teco Energy Inc. (NYSE: TE) and Microchip Technology Incorporated (NASDAQ: MCHP).

For about the past two years, Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK) has been shedding assets in order to raise cash. The company reported debt of more than $12 billion at the end of March, and the company's CEO thinks that reducing debt will get the company's market cap up to where it belongs.

The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) followed in the footsteps of competitors News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWSA) and Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) by beating street DIS stock earnings estimates for its second fiscal quarter of 2010. Disney reported EPS of $0.48 for the quarter, beating expectations of $0.46. Revenues totaled $8.6 billion compared with average estimates of $9.4 billion.

Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) is on the rise in 2010 – the stock is up 16%, almost five times better than the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and a Starbucks dividend was offered to shareholders for the first time in the company's history. But to maintain this growth SBUX will have to fend off coffee rivals that include McDonald's Corp. (NYSE: MCD) with its lower-priced cappuccinos, gourmet home brewers like Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR) and Peet's Coffee & Tea, Inc. (NASDAQ: PEET) -- not to mention smaller rivals like Caribou Coffee Company, Inc. (NASDAQ: CBOU) and local community coffee shops.

In a recent conference call to discuss the company's fiscal fourth-quarter earnings, Electronics Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) COO John Schappert estimated video game sales would be down 3% year-over-year in April industrywide. But Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) isn't concerned about slumping video game trends – the retail stock is looking to give rival video game retailer GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) a run for its money by jumping back into the used gaming business.

Just a few weeks ago the shares in US steel makers was trading at or above their highest point since the beginning of the year. United States Steel Corp. (NYSE: X), Nucor Corp. (NYSE: NUE), and AK Steel Holding Corp. (NYSE: AKS) were anywhere from 10% to nearly 90% above their year ago share prices. Even aluminum maker Alcoa, Inc. (NYSE: AA) set a new 52-week high.

Events of the past week could leave you with the impression that a new bear market is kicking off. To be sure, the Eurozone financial system is heavily exposed to soured Greek sovereign and private debt. Much of it needs to be refinanced over the next six months, probably at higher rates. All this is a drag on Eurozone growth, which had a poor outlook to start with. But look on the bright side:

Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU), China's leading internet search engine, is scheduled to execute a 10-for-1 stock split on its ADR shares on Wednesday. Another stock split comes soon after with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR) executing a 3-for-1 stock split on May 18. That raises the question whether other high priced stocks like Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Intuitive Surgical Inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG), Priceline.com Inc. (NASDAQ: PCLN) or MasterCard Inc. (NYSE: MA) will follow suit.

Healthcare Realty Trust Inc. (NYSE: HR) has been one of the most successful of my recommended REITs in the past year. HR is a real estate investment trust, which is a corporate structure that provides the public with an easy way to invest in real property. To qualify as an REIT, a company must serve as pass-through investment vehicle by distributing 90% of its taxable profits as dividends. It must also have 75% of its investment in real estate. If it meets these criteria, it does not have to pay federal income tax.

When Cameco Corp. (NYSE: CCJ), the world's largest uranium miner, reported earnings a week ago it noted that it planned to double production capacity over the next eight years to meet demand for nuclear fuel as the market for nuclear power generation expands. Cameco, with a market cap of about $9.5 billion, has the balance sheet and operating cash flow to make that happen.

As consumer spending and consumer confidence both continue improve, now may be the best time to buy into retail index funds such as RXI, IYK, IYR, XRT, XHB, RTH, VCR, RCD, PEZ, PEJ and PMR.

Price ratio analysis shows there are some good valuation plays out there for value investors. Even after the stock market surged about 70%, investment valuations for U.S. companies remain some of the most attractive in about 20 years at the end of April. Profit forecasts for S&P 500 companies from consumer electronics icon Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) to tech stock Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) to rail company CSX Corp. (NYSE: CSX) have climbed 9.3 percent on average in April.

The New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) recently reported a 12% year-over-year decline in its print advertising business for Q1 of 2010 compared to same period last year, primarily as a result of the on-going macroeconomic declines in the broader ad market. Furthermore, the company is facing rising competitive pressure from News Corporation (NASDAQ: NWS) publication The Wall Street Journal, which is launching a NYC metro edition and aggressively luring new advertisers.

SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK), which competes with Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) and Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) in flash memory cards for consumer electronics, reported a strong improvement in flash memory gross margins for the first quarter of 2010.

Top Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE) executive Mark Parker talked about his ambitious goal to boost global sales 40% by 2015 recently in a Wall Street Journal interview. If Nike can meet that goal, it will become yet another iconic American company like Domino's Pizza Inc. (NYSE: DPZ), The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) and McDonald's Corp. (NYSE: MCD) that is putting emerging markets ahead of the U.S. on its priority list.

The CEO of Transocean Ltd. (NYSE: RIG), Steven Newman, will be testifying in front of the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources later this morning. But don't think RIG is the only stock in the hot seat. Newman names a number of other crude oil companies as responsible parties: Transocean was the offshore drilling contractor for BP plc (NYSE: BP); the mud sub-contractor was a joint venture between Smith International, Inc. (NYSE: SII) and Schlumberger Ltd. (NYSE: SLB) which are in the process of merging; the casing sub-contractor was Weatherford International, Ltd. (NYSE: WFT); and the cementing sub-contractor was Halliburton Co. (NYSE: HAL).