Saw this story at Yahoo Finance today. Tesoro Corporation Terminates Rights Plan Last year Tracinda offered $64 per share for Tesoro. Then Tesoro implemented this plan to dissuade a takeover. Now that the stock is floundering around the low $30's, they must be hoping that Tracinda or someone else will be templated to pick up a bargain. I'm doubting they will get the $64 price in this environment.

Chris Perruna analyzes Chipotle Mexican Grill and compares it to CROX. Basically, institutional investors are slowly heading for the exits. Click here for the article.

The Tesoro Hawaii refinery was shut down due to a fire over the weekend. How much more financial pain will this unit to continue to inflict?

Chipotle reported earnings tonight. Their net income was up 62% at 53 cents per share. Unfortunately, they missed analyst estimates by 2 cents per share, which sent shares down 13+% after hours. The share price was around $93.50 after hours. I'm so tired of watching my stocks tumble because of over optimistic estimates. Dear Chipotle Management, please be more conservative with your estimates!

This week I bought a new FranklinCovey Calendar for 2008. There's something exciting about buying a new, empty calendar. It is like buying a new notebook. The pages are empty, but they hold promise. Maybe something new and exciting will happen during the next year. As I thought about the new FranklinCovey Calendar, I couldn't help but think about the company. Earlier in the year I had written them down as a possible investment opportunity. Their stock symbol is FC. Looking at the charts on Yahoo Finance, it looks like their stock is up around 60 cents for the year, which translates to a 9% gain for the year. That's not bad. But it looks like their net income has declined significantly during the last year. I wonder much longer a paper calendar company can survive during this online age. I only know one other person that uses the FranklinCovey book as much as me, and that's my Dad. While looking at their stock information, I also found a press release titled FranklinCovey Survey Reveals Top 3 New Year's Resolutions for 2008: Eliminate Debt, Lose Weight, Develop Healthy Habits. Their top three resolutions are:

1. Get out of debt or save money
2. Lose weight
3. Develop a healthy habit (e.g., exercise or healthy eating)

I pretty much want to accomplish EVERYTHING they listed during 2008. I wonder how much these resolutions change from year to year?

On Monday I logged into my IRA to see how the morning was going. To my horror, I had a major drop. Every portfolio in the entire Universe was up on Monday, except mine. On further investigation, it turns out that Walgreens had turned in a HUGE negative surprise. They missed earning estimates by 7 cents. I will NEVER understand why companies that large cannot have a handle on their estimates. I will ALSO NEVER understand why the analysts covering Walgreens got the estimates so wrong. On Tuesday the bloodletting continues as the analysts wake up and start posting warnings. Thanks, guys...