Maybe General Motors (NYSE: GM) can sell its movie rights to a rollercoaster manufacturer. It certainly has plenty of ups and downs. The stock was pounded earlier in the week, when bondholders refused to swap their debt for equity.

Optimism had a turn at the wheel on Thursday, when the bondholder committee warmed up to a revised deal.

Between the time I write this and the time you ultimately read this, several more ups and down are likely to happen. What a ride! I'd suggest you throw your arms up in the air to enjoy it a little more, but maybe you should keep your hands closer to your pocketbook.

Briefly in the news
And now let's take a quick look at some of the other stories that shaped our week.

  • Remember when solar energy was the big investing craze? Reality has been a bit of a cold shower lately. Photovoltaic cell specialist Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) checked in with its quarterly results this week. Revenue fell by more than 70% at the company. Yikes!
  • BusinessWeek is reporting that Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) is introducing a Mac OS X-based tablet next year. Between the netbook craze and Amazon.com's (Nasdaq: AMZN) Kindle, the market is finally there for handheld computing devices. Yes, Apple's Newton was just fashionably early. Now one has to wonder if Apple is fashionably late this time.
  • Sirius XM Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) held its annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday. The most interesting tidbit of information from the satellite radio operator's presentation is that 748,000 of its subscribers have upgraded to the "Best Of" package that offer Sirius and XM listeners a few of the more popular channels of the rival service.

Until next week, I remain,
Rick Munarriz