Blog Posts by Chris Nichols

Williams-Sonoma (WSM) was in uncharted territory Wednesday, hitting an all-time high after the upper-end home goods and kitchenware seller delivered its latest earnings, announced a dividend raise and set plans for an expanded buyback.

The San Francisco-based merchant, which also operates the Pottery Barn and West Elm brands, saw its shares jump 11.6%, or $5.22, to $50.43 on volume that was, at midday, already five times the average for an ordinary full session. The last time it rose more in a single day, percentage-wise, was seven months ago. The highest close ever for the stock (split-adjusted) is $47.93, last Oct. 18, and the intraday peak was recorded about two weeks after that, at $48.07.

It has to be said. Like so many stocks, retailers and otherwise, Williams-Sonoma was slammed in the recession and market meltdown. In November 2008 it dropped under $5, some 80% below where it started that year. The turnaround, though, has paid off for anyone who could hang on. Since then, it's

The Gap (GPS) will see its shares continue to rise, climbing another 40% from the close Friday, if the most optimistic Wall Street analyst covering the stock is correct.

Jefferies, already with the highest price target on the San Francisco-based clothes store, has boosted its price target on Gap to $51 a share from $50. According to FactSet data, that marks the ninth time going back to the beginning of last year that Randal Konik has increased the goal.

At $51, the target is almost 31% ahead of the consensus price estimate of $39.02. After Jefferies, the second-highest target is $48 at Credit Agricole.

Bears on Gap have been very disappointed since the start of 2012, during which time the stock has surged 96.2% from $18.55. That share performance was one factor, but only one, in Gap being named Yahoo! Finance's company of the year.

The retailer's stock has advanced 16% thus far in 2013. Should Jefferies' view prove to be accurate, the future of Gap remains extremely bright for owners

Amazon.com (AMZN) was having its worst session in a month and a half after getting downgraded by JPMorgan, a move that sent shares down 3.1% Thursday.

Citing worries about gross profit growth at the online retailer, the firm cut its rating on the stock to neutral from overweight and reduced its price target from $333 to $300. Amazon was dropping $8.59 to $266.51 in recent trading. Percentage-wise, the last time it fell more in a session was Jan. 29, when it lost 5.7%.

Shares of Amazon have been a big winner in the past four years of the market rally. They're up 51% going back one year, and during the rebound that started in March 2009, the stock has soared 300%, according to Yahoo! Finance data. That easily outpaces the 105% rise of stocks overall, measured by the S&P 500, as well as the 127% climb for the Nasdaq Composite.

The downgrade comes with Amazon still near its all-time high and a day after the Seattle-based company said it would lower prices in the U.S. for a couple of its

A group of hackers who say they're behind denial of service attacks against American banks are arguing that the existence on the Internet of a movie insulting to Islam should cost the financial institutions roughly $875 million.

The cyber offensive will only stop when the movie, "Innocence of Muslims," is completely removed from the web, the hackers say. The group, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters, published their demands on Pastebin, a text and code sharing site, on March 5 and followed with another post this week.

During what the group calls phase three of Operation Ababil, American banks should expect denial of service attacks on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Distributed denial of service attacks are carried out when hackers intentionally overload targeted servers with traffic. If they create more traffic than the servers can handle, they can bring down a website and make it inaccessible temporarily.

The hackers indicated that they would launch the bank attacks for several

(Updated at 4:58 p.m. ET)

Despite the setbacks around the 787 Dreamliner, Boeing's (BA) stock is back at levels it hasn't seen in half a decade, with the latest step upward coming after a report that it could be close to announcing an $18 billion order, one of the biggest it's ever gotten.

The Chicago-based airplane maker was trading not just beyond a 52-week high Tuesday, as a cursory glance at a basic chart would show, but instead has returned to an area it last occupied in May 2008. At the close, the stock was up $1.22, or 1.5%, at $84.16.

Even though the 787 was grounded earlier this year owing to worries about the safety of the aircraft, shares of Boeing have gained 7.6% since the beginning of 2013. That's right in line with the 7.7% gain for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, of which it's a member, and ahead of the 6.4% advance for the S&P 500. Boeing's all-time closing high was $107.23 in July 2007, according to FactSet data.

The day's lift for Boeing was being influenced by a

McDonald's (MCD) said its comparable sales in February were negative for the third time in five months, extending a run of subpar showings for the fast-food chain going back to the second half of last year.

Even the adjusted results that exclude an extra day in 2012, which would haven given McDonald's a positive reading, aren't particularly impressive when viewed in the context of the past half-decade. During that time, sub-2% numbers were almost unheard of, until recently.

Last month, global same-store sales fell 1.5%, the second consecutive decline in a critical measure for the Oak Brook, Ill.-based burger and fries (and, of course, salads, shakes and Fish McBites) seller. The U.S. was down 3.3%, and Europe was off 0.5%. The Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa region saw comps fall 1.6%. The overall change was better than the consensus estimate of a 1.6% drop. As noted, the decrease was influenced by the comparison with a year ago. February in the prior year took place during a

The recent series of malicious hacks and network infiltrations at well-known news organizations and social networks has put cyber crime back in the headlines, though the prominent nature of the targets isn't the biggest worry.

According to one computer threat researcher, meddlesome man-made software -- which can be meant to do everything from cause a temporary minor annoyance up to looting extremely sensitive information -- isn't what it used to be, and the trouble for the good guys appears to be worsening.

"I do think it is a problem that is growing," says Ryan Sherstobitoff, senior security researcher with McAfee Labs, a part of Intel (INTC). "It's no longer something that is [only] a consumer issue or an average, everyday user issue. That's still the case in a lot of these situations, but it's now shifting toward highly targeted attacks against organizations and governments."

For instance, Sherstobitoff authored a paper released in January examining the Citadel Trojan. Citadel is

McDonald's (MCD) is set to post its February same-store sales Friday morning, providing a view on how the wide distribution of Fish McBites, along with other, non-promotional, non-seafood nugget menu items, have been performing in recent weeks.

It's still early in 2013, but the year got off to a slow start for McDonald's, continuing what's been a difficult stretch in terms of comparable sales. In January, total comps were negative for only the second month in almost 10 years -- the other time was in October. Sales rebounded and had an upbeat reading the next month, before going flat in December.

The Oak Brook, Ill.-based fast-food giant began 2012 on a high note, particularly in the U.S. Unfortunately for the Big Mac seller, as the year progressed comp sales charted an uneven, though generally lower, path. So the trend has been downward, and three of the last four months have failed to produce a positive showing in same-store sales. Here's the overall performance going back to the