Timothy Green

NVIDIA has launched two mid-range GPUs based on its new Maxwell architecture, and the power-efficiency gains are enormous. AMD's power-hungry products will be no match for Maxwell in any application where power usage and heat are important, and NVIDIA's lead over AMD looks to be growing larger.

Whole Foods fell short of analyst estimates and issued weak guidance when it recently reported earnings. With competition from smaller chains like Sprouts Farmers Market, as well as traditional grocers like Kroger, Whole Foods' best days in terms of growth may be behind it.

HP is set to report first-quarter earnings on Feb. 20, and its server business is one important area to watch. Lenovo's acquisition of IBM's x86 server operations may threaten HP's position as market leader in the long-term, and the trend of falling margins seems unlikely to reverse.

Cisco did about as poorly as the company guided for in the second quarter, with big revenue declines driven by weak sales to service providers. There was some good news buried in the sea of bad news, though, and it looks like things are slowly improving for Cisco.

Both Mattel and Hasbro failed to meet analyst expectations for the fourth quarter. Shares of Mattel fell by 10% post-earnings, making the stock look far more attractive than Hasbro's. This decline, coupled with a dividend increase, has pushed Mattel's yield above 4%, putting it on dividend growth investors' watchlists.

Activision-Blizzard has announced good news on two different fronts. World of Warcraft subscriber count has started to grow again after more than a year of declines, and the publisher is adding a third studio to its Call of Duty franchise in order to boost its quality. Electronic Arts' technical problems with Battlefield 4, along with this announcement, may keep Call of Duty on top for a long time.

NVIDIA beat analyst estimates for both earnings and revenue when it reported its fourth quarter earnings, with strong demand for its gaming GPUs surprising many given the recent product launches of rival AMD. Here's a look at the most important parts of NVIDIA's results.

AMD's new graphics API, Mantle, is finally supported in Battlefield 4, and the first benchmarks show that, while impressive, the technology is no game changer for AMD. Intel's CPUs are fast enough that most of Mantle's optimizations don't have much of an effect, and convincing developers to support the API will be difficult.

Cisco guided for an 8%-10% decline in revenue for the second quarter, with weakness in emerging markets the main culprit behind the decline. Earnings are expected to decline, and the company has lowered its long-term growth estimates. The second quarter will not be a pretty one.

Comcast's NBC is providing live streaming of the Sochi Winter Olympics to cable subscribers, using Adobe to monetize the stream across all platforms and Microsoft to provide the back-end service. What does this mean for these three companies?

J.C. Penney managed to return to same-store sales growth in the fourth quarter, but the 2% rise is almost meaningless compared to the 30%-plus decline last year. J.C. Penney's turnaround is making little progress, and store closings like those recently announced by RadioShack may be inevitable.

While NVIDIA's mobile business will continue to drag down the company's earnings, its strong gaming GPU and enterprise GPU businesses should help offset these mobile losses.

If rumors prove correct, Amazon may be set to launch a set-top gaming console in 2014. The device would run on Android and cost less than Sony's Playstation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One, but given the struggles of the $99 Ouya Android game console, Amazon has little chance of success.

Apple is under pressure from activist investor Carl Icahn to put its massive cash hoard to use buying back more shares of its own stock. Apple has been reluctant to give in, sticking to a previous buyback program instead, but pressure appears to be mounting. Will increased buybacks truly create long-term shareholder value?

Zynga is paying $527 million for Natural Motion, even after the recent failed acquisition of OMGPOP. While Natural Motion owns middleware used in games like Grand Theft Auto from Take-Two Interactive, Zynga is paying a steep price for this technology. With increasing competition in the mobile game market, Zynga may have a tough time turning a consistent profit going forward.

Weak holiday results have pushed many retail stocks down, with Best Buy and Staples falling into value territory. But shares of other retailers, like J.C. Penney, have fallen for good reason and should be avoided.

Xerox matched analyst estimates for earnings in the fourth quarter, but both revenue and earnings declined year over year. The company is positioned to return to growth in 2014, and a modest dividend increase is part of Xerox's plan to gradually raise the dividend over time.

Yum! Brands is set to report fourth-quarter earnings on Feb. 3, following the disappointing earnings release from rival McDonald's. While Yum!'s U.S. business is in good shape, new avian flu fears in China could have a negative impact on Yum!'s business in the country.

Microsoft is evolving into a devices and services company, with the goal of creating a unified experience across all devices, with services powered by the cloud. While Microsoft's push into the mobile market has been slow to succeed, the pieces are all starting to come together.

AMD saw its shares slump after reporting earnings, with market share losses to Intel causing PC chip sales to decline faster than the PC market as a whole. While game consoles provided a boost in revenue, the rest of AMD's business doing poorly.