Blog Posts by Rebecca Stropoli

As Starbucks shares (SBUX) continue to add to steep losses following their earnings miss last week, investors are looking toward another coffee giant's earnings on Wednesday. Green Mountain (GMCR), the leader in the single-cup space with its Keurig brewer, will report 3Q results after the bell. A weak report could further hit its volatile stock, which has seen a massive 82% decline since this time last year and is down around 60% year-to-date.

Estimates for earnings per share are, on the low end, 0.43 percent, and at a high of 0.53, according to Yahoo! Finance data. Revenue is estimated to be $910.07 million on the high end at $852.45 million on the low. This would mark an estimated sales growth of around 21%.

Obviously it's been a tough trek for this Mountain over the past year; just a look at the stock's 52-week range, with a low of $17.11 and high of $115.98, tells that story. The strong selloff began in earnest last October, when hedge fund manager and vocal GMCR short David

Starbucks (SBUX) shares are feeling a serious caffeine hangover Friday, sinking more than 10% after the company's first earnings miss since December 2008, and a lowered outlook that follows other recent disappointments from chain eateries Chipotle (CMG) and McDonald's (MCD). According to FactSet data, this marks the seventh-worst one-day percentage loss so far in the Seattle-based coffee leader's 20-year history as a public company; it's been 12 years since shares saw such a lousy day.

The company's U.S. same-store sales increased 7%; global comparable store sales were up 6%. Currently the stock has a PE ratio of 27, according to Yahoo! Finance data.

The stock, which had been up close to 14% for the year before the miss, began its slide after hours Thursday following its report of 43 cents per share earnings -- two cents below average analyst expectations -- and revenue of $3.3 billion, a significant growth of 13%. But when you are the coffee king and expectations run high, that kind

It's anything but fun and games for Zynga (ZNGA) Thursday as the stock continues its steep plunge following Wednesday's dismal 2Q earnings. The report badly missed Wall Street expectations and provided a dramatically lowered outlook amid delays in new game releases, a rocky shift to mobile, a disappointing performance for current game offerings such as "Draw Something" and less play from Facebook's massive audience given recent interface changes.

This afternoon Zynga's shares are trading at an all-time low of around $3.13 on volume as high as 1.3 million; this is close to a 40% drop since yesterday and around 70% below the company's December IPO price of $10 per share.

Following the dismal report and outlook, several brokerages -- from Morgan Stanley to Goldman to Citigroup and Lazard -- have slashed their ratings and price targets on the company. One previously bullish Zynga analyst, Richard Greenfield of BTIG, even expressed embarrassment after removing his seemingly

While a severe summer drought and extreme heat across the Midwest have taken the price of corn, soybeans and wheat on a sharp ride upward over the past several weeks, most consumers aren't likely to feel a major related hit to their grocery bills until next year.

Wednesday's monthly report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture has left its overall forecast so far unchanged for the rest of 2012, at 2.5% to 3.5% inflation for all food. But the USDA sees a rise of 3% to 4% across the board in 2013, as meat and other food products could finally feel the effects of the current arid weather conditions. However, for the time being, it still remains to be seen exactly how much of an effect this drought could have.

"The severe drought in the Midwest is expected to affect prices for corn and soybeans as well as other field crops which should, in turn, impact retail food prices," the report notes. But "the full extent of the drought and its effects on commodity prices are as yet unknown."

News Corp. stock (NWS) on Tuesday slipped so slightly on low volume following the announcement that criminal charges have been brought against eight key figures in the never-ending phone hacking scandal, including ex-News of the World editor and former U.K. director of communications Andy Coulson and former head of News International Rebekah Brooks.

Also being charged are several senior tabloid reporters, along with  private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. This is just the latest development -- and a very significant one -- in an interminable tale that goes all the way back to 2006, when the first arrests were made on suspicion that now-shuttered London tabloid News of the World was allowing its reporters to hack into the voice mails of royal family members.

Since then the investigation has widened enormously -- it really caught fire amid gruesome allegations that the tabloid hacked into the voice mail of a missing British 13-year-old girl who was later found murdered -- and led to

Following Thursday's first-day pop of more than 55 percent (making it the top percentage gainer of the session), discount retailer Five Below (FIVE) continued its rise (although much more modestly) on its second day of trade on the Nasdaq.The stock ended up more than 2 percent for the day after initially slipping slightly in early trade. With a range of $26.10 to $29.33 throughout the day, shares ended at $27.27, more than $10 above the offer price of $17.

Meanwhile, two other companies made their debut Friday morning: Palo Alto (PANW), a security software company that's listed on the NYSE, and travel company Kayak Software Corp. (KYAK), another Nasdaq stock.

Palo Alto was off to a soaring start in early trade, with shares up early more than 30 percent from their $42 offer price (which was well above its initial expected range of $34 to $37). The stock ended its first day of trade up close to 27 percent at $53.53, after trading in a range of $53.10 to $62.07.

Kayak also rose, closing

Shares of discount retailer Five Below (FIVE) are popping in their debut on the Nasdaq Thursday, rising more than 57 percent in late trading. Its shares, priced at $17 on Wednesday, hit $26.16 within the first hour of trade and were hovering above $28 an hour before the close. Five Below raised $163.5 million in its offering of 9.6 million shares.

The Philadelphia-based company -- which caters to the tween set, selling everything from sports gear to party supplies to iPhone cases at a price of $5 or less -- first opened its doors in 2002. It currently has 199 stores across the U.S. and plans to open another 50 this year. Five Below was the top percentage gainer of the session.

This smooth start stands in contrast with the most notorious Nasdaq offering of the year: Facebook's (FB) mid-May IPO, a debacle that began with tech glitches that massively botched the opening day of trading and may have lost more than $500 million for investors and financial firms. Facebook shares are currently

The rise of women in the U.S. workforce -- along with their dominance in both the undergraduate and graduate degree arena -- has not brought us very close to income parity on a national level. According to the most recent study by the Institute for Women's Policy Research, if the overall U.S. annual wage gap ratio -- which stands at 77 percent according to the Census Bureau -- continues to close at the current pace, male and female incomes on average will not be on equal footing until 2056.

While the wage gap between men and women in the U.S. has significantly narrowed over the past several decades, and females are increasingly becoming the primary household earners, there is still just one U.S. region where full-time female employees earn more than 90 percent of what their male counterparts do. Washington, DC., has that distinction, with female workers earning a median annual wage of $56,127, compared to $61,381 for their male co-workers. Conversely, Wyoming has the largest remaining