This article is written by Minyanville's Scott Reeves

Tiffany & Co.’s (TIF) latest earnings are expected to be downbeat, but the long-term outlook for the company remains strong.

On Wednesday, analysts expect the upscale marketer of jewelry, crystal, china, silverware, watches, and other luxury items to report third-quarter 2009 earnings of $0.23 a share, down from $0.35 for the same period a year ago. A conference call will be held at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time.

For more on Tiffany's earnings, see today's Upgrades & Downgrades.

Second-quarter sales fell 16% to $612.5 million. Same-store sales, or sales at stores open at least a year, also declined 16%. The company earned $56.7 million, or $0.46 a share.

This article is written by Minyanville's Josh Lipton

It may not be just gifts for boys and girls that St. Nick delivers this December. Market pros say we can also expect him to shower investors with good fortune as the year comes to a close.

November through April is historically the strongest period for the stock market. In addition, write the strategists at InvesTech Research, there's a seasonal occurrence that usually provides the higher price -- or at least stability -- through January.

For more on how the rest of the year will unfold, see The Mother of All Pennants.

The highlight of this seasonal period: the so-called Year-End or Santa Claus Rally.

By Dan Freed, TheStreet.com

 

General Electric's (GE) stock price is looking to make another run similar to one it had prior to the company's third-quarter earnings report Oct. 16.

 

Shares rose slightly on Tuesday even as shares of big financials, including Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and American International Group fell. GE's shares are up slightly during the past five trading days through Tuesday, while the S&P 500 declined over that time.

• Bing: More on General Electric

Industrial stocks, with which GE would like to be compared, were more mixed Tuesday, with Honeywell and ITT trading higher while other industrial, including Caterpillar and United Technologies lost value.

By Jamie Dlugosch

 

Sorry, Tim Geithner. Former New York governor and attorney general Eliot Spitzer makes a strong case in the online magazine Slate that you got fleeced in the AIG bailout.

 

Spitzer says the Treasury secretary's weak negotiating raised the bailout cost to $200 billion.

 

It wasn't just a failure of Geithner; the reality was that the government was way over its head in dealing with this complex crisis. Wall Street manipulated the markets in creating the crisis and then manipulated the government to extricate itself from the damage.

 

The Street took advantage of what appears to be a less-informed and ill-equipped government. And in the end, we taxpayers pay for that ineptitude.

Individual investors are worried about the market and pouring money into bear-market and long-short mutual funds, Bloomberg reports.

JPMorgan Chase and Pacific Investment Management say that people are following the lead of hedge funds and preparing for the end of the stock market rally.

So far this year, they have put about $10 billion into mutual funds designed to protect against falling stock prices, according to Bloomberg. That's more than twice the amount that flowed into these funds in 2006, which was the previous record.

Warren Buffett has arranged an $8 billion loan from JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo so that he can buy the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI) railroad, Bloomberg reports.

The loan isn't a surprise, especially for a $26 billion purchase. But what has some people puzzled is the loan's term: one year. Why so short?

The interest rate is 1 percentage point to 2 percentage points more than the London interbank offered rate, which is down to about 0.27 percent.

"Isn't borrowing short-term at a low interest rate to buy a long-term asset what caused a lot of problems for housing buyers?"