Lowe's Q2 forecasts were lower than expected, perhaps due to the company's concern over 'strategic defaults.'

Sirius XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) is up today following a strange guidance move in which the company raised estimates for the whole year only days after reporting a surprise profit.

Pre-paid revenues are harder for carries to predict, and churn rates are higher because pre-paid customers have no reason to stick with a carrier if a lower price is available elsewhere. The announcement that Sprint (S) is teaming up with Wal-Mart (WMT) to offer a new low-cost pre-paid plan could change that.

For the seventh straight month, retail sales in the U.S. have risen, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Late Wednesday, enterprise software giant SAP AG (SAP)announced that it will acquire database and mobile software maker Sybase (SY). According to ChangeWave Research, SAP may be expanding at just the right time.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez posted a message on Twitter this morning that a natural gas explosion in the Caribbean sank a semi-submersible drilling rig. The rig, called the Aban Pearl, was owned by India's Aban Offshore Ltd. and all 95 crew on board were safely evacuated according to Chavez. No cause was given for the explosion and Venezuelan officials say that the rig explosion poses no environmental risk. But the blast comes a little more than three weeks after a rig owned by Transocean Ltd. (RIG) and operated for BP plc (BP) exploded in the Gulf of Mexico leaving 11 workers missing and presumed dead, and leaking an estimated 5,000 b/d of crude oil into the Gulf.

The owner of the Deepwater Horizon that exploded in flames and sank in the Gulf of Mexico, Transocean Ltd. (NYSE: RIG), has filed a petition in the the US District Court in Houston seeking to limit the company's liability for the incident and asking the court to issue an injuction restricting lawsuits already filed in another jurisdiction. The explosion at a well being drilled for BP plc. (NYSE: BP) destroyed the semi-submersible Deepwater Horizon and killed 11 workers.

Priceline.com Inc. (NASDAQ: PCLN), an online travel merchant with a market cap of almost $10 billion, reported strong first-quarter earnings on Tuesday. This is along with strong results from other travel stocks such as Ctrip International Ltd. (NASDAQ: CTRP), Expedia, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE) and Orbitz Worldwide Inc. (NYSE: OWW).

China Internet stock Baidu Inc. (BIDU), had a 10-for-1 stock split on Wednesday. Investors seemed to gobble up the "cheaper" shares even though the underlying value of Baidu didn't change after the split, just the share price and the number of BIDU stock shares on the market. This is a case study for why pricey stocks like tech stocks Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) should execute splits of their own. Other pricey blue chips like Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), Priceline (PCLN) or MasterCard (MA) may be good candidates as well.

Burger King Holdings Inc. (NYSE: BKC) will officially closing the doors of locations in Israel this summer after a failed attempt to bring Western tastes to the Middle East. This is the latest in a string of fast-food failures for U.S. restaurants including McDonald's Corp. (NYSE: MCD), Yum! Brands Inc. (NYSE: YUM) and Wendy's/Arby's Group Inc. (NYSE: WEN).

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.