If you're feeling good about the market, you're not alone. Take my hand as we go over some of this week's more uplifting headlines.
1. Legend of the faux
Even a hospitality behemoth like Marriott
Hoping to draw attention to the remodeled lobbies at its Courtyard by Marriott chain, the hotelier paid to house a replica inside the heavily trafficked Grand Central Terminal in New York City. As if that wasn't enough, Marriott decided to enhance the buzz by having Grammy award winner John Legend play a set to draw a crowd.
It worked.
Marriott isn't stopping there. Next week it plans to roll out three faux lobbies at busy airports in Atlanta, Denver, and Chicago. This seems like an even better idea than the original stunt, since it will target the same on-the-go corporate travelers whom Courtyard targets as overnight guests.
Well played, Marriott.
2. The sun also rises
Shares of JA Solar
All of the orders for mono-crystalline and multi-crystalline solar cells will be fulfilled next year.
Solar energy stocks have been shining brightly lately, with most of the key players posting sharp bottom-line improvement over last year's depressed levels. Any order is a good order, and JA Solar announcing so many orders in a single press release provides a welcome form of validation.
3. Lights! Camera! Streaming action!
Netflix
The leading digital celluloid service is playing nice with yet another movie producer. Avi Lerner's Nu Image is Netflix's latest online grab. Beginning with next year's Al Pacino vehicle The Son of No One, Netflix will make the studio's movies available through the streaming service that is included at no additional cost to its subscribers on unlimited disc plans.
Nu Media and its Millennium Films subsidiary will make their productions available to Netflix's digital catalog during the same window that they air on premium movie channels. These aren't exactly household names, but this summer's surprising action hit The Expendables and older action flicks including John Rambo and 16 Blocks came from Nu Media.
Ultimately, it's just one more notch in Netflix's digital bedpost -- and one more deal that its competitors will have to make if they ever want to challenge Netflix and its 15 million subscribers.
4. New App Store application: iHumility
A little modesty suits Apple
The tweak was strong enough to lead shares of Adobe
Apple also offered more transparency in its approval process for third-party apps. Is this Apple acting on its own, or is it simply reacting to the growing popularity of the more open Android platform? Does it matter, really? At the end of the day, it's Apple making its iOS platform more accessible to developers, opening the floodgates for even more applications.
Apple haters? There are a few less arrows in your quiver now.
5. We will be landing Zune
Microsoft
The world's largest software company and the legacy carrier have been in promotional cahoots before. Microsoft has provided UAL's in-flight music programming, offering 21 different Zune-branded channels of genre-specific content, for several months now.
Loaning out Zune players on long flights overseas won't have the same ambassadorial breadth as the Zune channels, but it will help Zune's brand. Even those who decide against kicking the Zune HD's tires will at least know that there's an alternative to the market-dominant iPod.
When you're Microsoft in this nascent industry, every baby step forward is a good one.