A Fool Looks Back

Snaps and grease traps played more than bit parts in this week's Wall Street flick.

Take a better picture
Really? Just like that? Eastman Kodak (NYSE: EK) spends a century making cameras and then just turns around and decides to outsource the manufacturing process? It's bad enough that the company's film business has faded now that folks prefer memory cards to bulky rolls of film. There's still money to be made in photofinishing -- Kodak Paper remains the brand that matters -- but does anyone dare to venture a guess what Kodak the company will look like in five to 10 years?

One can't blame Kodak. It's not the company's fault that digital photography made so much of Kodak's core operations practically obsolete. The past means little. How many of us still look like our youthful yearbook snapshots? Kodak sure doesn't.

You've got free AOL!
If Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) can't keep its customers paying for its AOL service, it's going to give it away. The struggling online subsidiary's new strategy is desperate, but with a resurgence in online advertising, Time Warner hopes that AOL can make it up in volume before the last subscriber turns off the light on the way out.

Home of the Whopper of an earnings report
So Burger King (NYSE: BKC) stepped up to the earnings podium to produce its first quarterly report as a standalone company, and it was a dud. It was so bad that even the Burger King mascot with that goofy grinning mask was frowning.

I feel a song parody coming on. You remember that old "have it your way" ditty that BK used to slap McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) around with? Hand me the microphone and cue up the karaoke ...

Hold the profits, hold the lettuce
Special charges will upset us
All we ask is that you let us cash out your way
Cash out your way, cash out your way.

Seriously, though. Companies that disappoint the market their first time up to bat often obliterate the market's confidence. Burger King is going to have climb a wall higher than dozens of its new BK Stackers to woo Wall Street back.

Until next week, I remain,

Rick Munarriz

Time Warner is aMotley Fool Stock Advisornewsletter recommendation.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. The Fool has a disclosure policy. He is also part of theRule Breakersnewsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.