The original bid for Alitalia by Air France-KLM was based on an oil price of $86 a barrel, according to the Deputy CEO of Air France, in an interview on CNBC Europe. Those talks were shelved a month ago, but at $120 to $130, the Deputy CEO said that Air France-KLM would have to come up with a more "difficult and demanding" business plan.    Read More

Stocks may try to shake off losses Thursday, but spiking oil prices and a weak dollar could hold back efforts to rally.    Read More

We have all had some miserable customer service experiences and as we sit on hold or try to navigate through yet another voice response system, we wonder how can these companies get away with this.  In fact, a 2006 Harris Interactive Poll showed 40% of us would rather go to the dentist than deal with poor customer service.  My most recent mind numbing experience with my phone company, Verizon, made me wonder if there is a way to translate this into investing opportunities.   Here is what I found...   Read More

Dollar rallying again today, up 1.7 percent since the close on Monday. The bold analyst call of the day (week, month, year?) goes to Punk Ziegel's Richard Bove, who last night titled his piece, "The Financial Crisis is Over," calling the Bear Stearns sale the watershed event, and concluded by saying "this is a once in a generation opportunity" to buy financial stocks.    Read More

Any way you look at it, the main story today is lowering earnings estimates. Whether you look at Merrill slashing Citi's estimates, or Intel cutting its gross margin forecast, or downbeat comments from Barnes and Noble and Staples, the implications of the commentary on these companies is that things are not improving and, in some cases, weakness may continue into the second half of the year.    Read More

Cramer makes the call on viewers' favorite stocks.   Read More