Here we are, in a dingy little chapel on the Las Vegas Strip ready to see the shotgun wedding between the cool, suave Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and the delicate, sensitive Sun Microsystems Inc. (JAVA). The groom, Oracle, looks bored and ready to get it over with while the bride, Sun Microsystems, looks like she expects someone to ruin her lovely wedding.

The priest at the gaudy alter is asking those in attendance (the investors from both companies): “If there is someone who wishes to protest this wedding, speak now or forever hold you peace.”

Thomas Edison, one of the world’s most acclaimed inventors, brought to life the world’s first commercially practical light bulb. Innovation and technologies were the primary drives in his life and by the time of his death he had hundreds of patents under his name. Edison was not only a scientist at heart but also a successful business man. In his lifetime, he founded several companies and yet only one achieved world renowned status. He was one of the founders of General Electric Corporation (GE).

Edison’s love for innovation allowed GE to be viewed as a company that pioneered research, development and technological evolution. Consumers soon came to count on GE for its productive and durable products that worked to simplify everyday life. This evolution happened during Edison’s lifetime, but now Edison has long been gone and times have changed.

Palm Inc. (PALM), a smartphone company, will announce its 4th quarter fiscal year 2009 financial results on Thursday, June 25^th, after 4 p.m ET/1 p.m PT. The company will then hold a conference call for the public at 4:30 p.m.

Analysts expect the company to report -$0.64 cents earnings per share.

Nike, Inc. (NKE) will be releasing its fourth quarter fiscal 2009 earnings on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at approximately 1:15 p.m. PT, after the close of regular stock market trading hours. Nike management will then hold a conference call beginning at 2:00 p.m. PT to review the results.

Analysts expect the company to announce earnings of $0.96 for the fourth quarter.

Oracle Corporation (ORCL), the world’s largest business software company, will release its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2009 results on Tuesday, June 23rd, after the close of the market. The company will then hold a conference call and live webcast at 2:00 p.m. PT/ 5:00 p.m. ET to discuss the financial results.

The company is expected to earn $0.44 per share, down from $0.47 per share the previous quarter.

On Thursday, J.M Smucker (SJM) announced their fourth quarter and full year results.

Here, we will present to readers a summary of their earnings report and then offer our own opinion on the company.

On Monday, it was reported that credit card defaults reached a record high. Companies such as Capital One (COF), Bank of America (BAC) and America Express (AXP) said their defaults rose to surpass 10% since the month of April.

Credit card defaults are essentially loans companies don’t expect to be paid back. Companies who provide sales on credit or depend mainly on credit sales for their businesses, such as credit card companies, always put aside money in accounts they will use to make up for the loans they don’t expect to gain back. These accounts are sometimes called Doubtful Accounts.

Last weekend the G8 summit convened in Lecce, Italy to discuss how they plan to reverse the steps they’ve taken to rescue the world economy.

Among the concerns voiced were that Europe was not doing enough to stimulate their economies and they were not disclosing enough information concerning their own stress tests.

This past week, the stock market benefited from a tech stock rally. In specific, cell phone makers and service providers saw a surge in their stock prices. Several companies came out with new products, while others signed up new customers.

Several analysts believe that tech stocks have enjoyed their run and will quietly let other stocks enjoy the center stage. But if we look at the long term, say the next couple of months, these stocks could potentially reward their investors with surprising profits.

On Thursday, Bank of America (BAC) CEO Kenneth Lewis stood before house lawmakers and proclaimed: “They made me do it.” He was pouting and pointing at the federal government, or more specifically, at former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. He called them bullies and told lawmakers that he “really, really, didn’t want to buy Merrill Lynch.”

Ok, so maybe that didn’t really happen, but it might as well have. Lewis was called before a congressional committee to clarify his claims that federal officials pressured him into acquiring Merrill Lynch and hiding from Bank of America’s shareholders the financial problems Merrill Lynch had. Lewis has already been stripped of his Chairman title by angry shareholders and still finds himself under intense scrutiny by the government. According to emails sent between Lewis and federal officials, he asked for a written document that explicitly absolved him from any legal risk should any shareholder lawsuits arise. He has said that he does not recall ever sending or receiving such emails. Paulson and Bernanke will soon be called to testify and answer these allegations.

The saga between the Boston Globe and The New York Times Co. (NYT) seems ready to continue on to another round. The New York Times Co., which owns the Boston Globe, has been trying to trim $20 million dollars in cost reductions in order to minimize their losses. It has been reported that last year the Globe lost $50 million dollars and that this year they are expected to lose about $80 million dollars. With the Globe expected to lose money, it should not come as a surprise that severe cuts might have to take place in order to save the Globe. The labor unions aren’t making this simple though.

In order to achieve their goal, The New York Times recently proposed a package of benefit and wage cuts. The unions responded with a flat out rejection and The New York Times now finds itself implementing a 23% salary cut for all employees across the board.

If you’ve been surfing the web recently, you’ve surely come across these big, black ads with the word “bing” typed in lower case letters. In fact you’ve probably come across them on several of the sites you’ve been on.

To inform you, “bing” is a newly released search engine that has earned itself a lot of fanfare from users and the technological community in general. The search engine offers several interesting features that are worth mentioning. To start off, when you search a certain keyword you get a list of links, like any other search engine.

The initial stress tests came at a time when the government kept pouring money into banks but had no way of testing whether this money was actually making a difference.

When the results of the first bank stress test were announced, the market did gain a small boost of confidence when they learned that banks would have to raise less capital than previously anticipated.