Each day brings more innovation, more government intervention and more questions that answers.

One tool to generate liquidity has been working very well, at least as borrowers are concerned. The Federal Reserve held a 28-day term auction to help financial companies and for the second week in a row all propositions submitted was accepted. It makes one wonder if anyone associated with the Term Auction Facility (TAF) is even bothering to examine the applications. On October 20th there $113.27 billion was submitted and accepted from 74 bidders, down slightly from October 6 auction that saw $138.09 submitted bids accepted from 71 bidders. Click here to see TAF trends.

Earnings of Note

It was all about technology after the market closed and while the numbers weren’t pretty, the initial reaction in the share prices suggests beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Apple (AAPL) saw revenues of $7.9 billion for the quarter and earned $1.26 a share, the Street was looking for $8.05 billion and $1.11. Management said visibility is low so forecasting is “challenging” as it offered guidance for the current quarter (1Q09). The company says it expects revenue in the range of $9.0 to $10.0 billion and earnings of $1.06 to $1.35.

The stock rallied anyway as investors have become hip to the coy guidance (historically) offered by Apple. Case in point: During the call for the preceding earnings report (3Q08) management offered guidance of revenue of $7.8 billion and earnings of $1.00.

Apple share were up nicely in the after market. But it doesn’t take a lot of spin to get see the pluses for the company. See Apple's segment sales trends, in units, here.

Yahoo (YHOO), on the other hand, is puzzling in both the reaction to the stock and the board of directors.

Yahoo reported revenue of $1.325 billion and earnings (ex-items) of $0.09. The Street was bracing for $1.369 billion and $0.08 on the bottom line. The company will cut 10% of its workforce or 15,000 employees. Cash flow was $347.0 million down 24% year on year. Sales in the US declined 7% and sales internationally decreased 12%.

That's almost unheard of! Still, the stock was up in the after market. Go figure.

Moving along, Samsung pulled its offer for Sandisk (SNDK) last night. I think it's time for Sandisk to suck it up and make that phone call and hope they could still take the money and run. Still the news for the beleaguered NASDAQ Composite is the fact that two of its best known players could put in dazzling performances today.

One could argue the index has formed a double bottom and if it could climb and close above 1,800 on strong volume the index could enjoy a handsome rally.   
 

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