Mourning Michael Jackson

As the world mourns Michael Jackson, the Fast Money team remembers the King of Pop as a businessman.

Of course we’re aware of the reports that he may have been as much as $500 million in debt at the time of his death, but there’s no denying that the superstar was no stranger to making money either. And we mean big money.

From concerts to merchandise and music he took in hundreds of millions of dollars as one of the most successful performers of all time. "Thriller" remains the biggest-selling pop album of all time.

His top assets include copyrights to his own songs and a stake in the Beatles' song catalog, which are worth more than $1 billion, according to published reports.

And even after his passing, Mr. Jackson is still ringing up sales. According to Rolling Stone, 7 out of the top 10 songs downloaded from Apple's iTunes store today are by Michael Jackson. The same goes for the Amazon MP3 store, where Jackson is listed as the service’s top-selling artist of the day.

We worried that it might seem opportunist to write about this trend, but we don’t think it is. To us it’s a tribute. For one final time Michael Jackson returns to the top of the charts - a truly appropriate finale for the King of Pop.

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Trader disclosure: On June 26th, 2009, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC’s Fast Money were owned by the Fast Money traders: Seymour Owns (AAPL), (BAC), (EEM), (FXI), (NOK), (TSO), (TUR); Seygem Asset Management Is Short (RSX); Adami Owns (AGU), (C), (GS), (MSFT), (INTC), (NUE), (BTU); Najarian Owns (GS) Call Spreads; Najarian Owns (JPM) And Is Short (JPM) Calls; Najarian Owns (PALM) Call Spread; Najarian Owns (S) Calls; Najarian Owns (WFC) Put Spread; Najarian Owns (YHOO) Call Spread; Najarian Owns (ESI) Call Spread; Terranova Owns (TER), (XBI), (BTU), (ABT), (RIMM), (HES), (MS),(MSFT)

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