Thanksgiving came a week early for General Motors (NYSE: GM), which successfully completed its highly anticipated IPO on Thursday.

The offering was priced at $33, opened at $35, and closed at $34.19. No peel-outs, no skid marks. In short, it was a pretty orderly return for the automotive giant.

Ford (NYSE: F) and its overseas buddies couldn't have the industry's recovery all to themselves. Taxpayers, through the U.S. Treasury stake in GM after the bailout, can now begin the healing process. 

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

  • Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) launched Boutiques.com, just in time for the holiday shopping season. Don't worry: Visitors won't be getting fashion advice from Larry and Sergey. Google's new site leans on celebrities, designers, and fashion bloggers to drum up online shopping ideas. 
  • During Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) annual shareholder meeting, a frustrated investor asked whether it was time to break Mr. Softy into pieces. Even if doing so makes sense, it's unlikely to happen.
  • SINA (Nasdaq: SINA) became the latest Chinese dot-com to land ahead of Wall Street's profit targets. Revenue and adjusted earnings grew by 12% and 65%, respectively, in its latest quarter. No one's discussing breaking up SINA, but that never happens when you're on a roll.
  • Merck (NYSE: MRK) had good clinical trial news on its promising new cholesterol drug. It still has a long way to go, so investors -- and unhealthy eaters -- will need to be patient here.

Until next week, I remain,

Rick Munarriz

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Google and Microsoft are Motley Fool Inside Value picks. Google is a Motley Fool Rule Breakers recommendation. Ford and SINA are Motley Fool Stock Advisor choices. Motley Fool Options has recommended a diagonal call position on Microsoft. The Fool owns shares of Google and Microsoft. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don't all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz recommends windshield wiper fluid when trying to look back. He owns no shares in any of the stocks in this story and is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. The Fool has a disclosure policy.