Earnings, earnings and more earnings. That's the story this trading day, and it's not just Apple (AAPL), even though the trend-setting tech shop once again impressed with its profit report and did what it could to buoy market sentiment.

A number of Dow components were on the schedule Thursday, starting with GE (GE) and DuPont (DD), McDonald's (MCD) and Verizon (VZ). What started out last week as an arguably neutral at best earnings season has tipped to the positive side this week, picking up steam thanks to tech names like IBM (IBM), Intel (INTC), and of course, the iPhone maker. MarketWatch's David Callaway writes that "the question now is whether the tech rally can finally help lift the moribund financial services sector out of the doldrums or whether persistent weakness in banks and on Wall Street will hobble a U.S. economy that appears ready to run." Read more in Tech and Bank Stocks on Collision Course.

Elsewhere, the oil markets continue to challenge investors, and The Wall Street Journal points out that part of the problem is the wealth of unreliable data. Get the details with Fuzzy Data Help Roil Oil Markets.

From Twitter:

*Douglas Kass @DougKass - not a dissenting comment on the markets today anywhere. that means, to me, investors will be disappointed over the near term - my view

*Jeffrey Carter @pointsnfigures - http://multivu.prnewswire.com/mnr/cmegroup/49742/ a good idea. Manage risk between govt bond portfolios. $ZB_F, $ZT_F, $ZF_F, $CME $$

*Mike Jackson @bondscoop - US Treasury must issue at least a 1/8 coupon on all auctions. So today's TIPS auction must come at a premium. Due to negative rates on TIPS

*Barry Ritholtz @ritholtz - If You Don't Own Apple Products, Can You Be An AAPL Investor? http://dlvr.it/PF623 $$

Deciding when a value play becomes a value trap is a billion-dollar question in the investing world. It's one that seldom fails to spark a debate, if not a fist fight, between traders and the buy-and hold camp.

"Breakout" invited Ted Parrish, a principal at the Henssler Financial Group, to join us to share his view of the investing world. The question here isn't so much how to find "value" -- for that I highly recommend Warren Buffett's annual letter to investors as a starting point. The real issue, and what value players are loath to discuss, is how do you know when to sell?

Parrish ran through a variety of strategies, depending on the situation. Most critically, he starts from his investing goal. "My bogey is to actually get about 12% a year out of each company I own," he says. After that, the portfolio manager gets case-specific with a hard rule that he sells when he feels like "there's no way they're going to grow the business." Having established his ground rules, we looked through some of his favorites: