Cash-strapped consumers are eating more meals at home and that's slathering J.M. Smucker's (SJM) bottom line in sweet, sticky profits.

The packaged-food maker said Friday that fiscal second-quarter earnings boomed more than 170%, blowing past Wall Street's estimates by 18 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters. Even more impressive, revenue leaped by 52%.

Smucker may be best known for its eponymous jams and jellies -- other brands include Jif, Hungry Jack, Crisco and Pillsbury -- but it's the Folgers coffee business the company acquired from Procter & Gamble (PG) last year that's jolting growth.

Twitter co-founder and CEO Biz Stone said Thursday that Rupert Murdoch's potential plan to block Google from searching New Corp.'s (NWS) websites is doomed to fail. Murdoch has accused Google (GOOG) of stealing content from his publications, which include The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post in the U.S., and The Times and The Sun in the United Kingdom. The cantankerous tycoon said last week that blocking Google could be part of his strategy to get more people to pay for content online.

Here's a young man, all of 35, who runs a company that makes no money, telling an old man, 78, who runs companies that have made billions, that he is wrong. But while it's easy to dismiss Stone's comments as youthful bravado, I think he's giving Murdoch some valuable advice.

A Florida woman on Thursday won a $300 million judgment against Altria Group's (MO) unit Philip Morris USA -- the largest award yet among 8,000 lawsuits filed in the state against tobacco companies. Jurors took three hours to return the award to Cindy Naugle, 61, of Ft. Lauderdale, a former smoker who was given $56.6 million in compensatory damages and $244 million in punitive damages. Philip Morris is responsible for all of the punitive damages and for 90% of the compensatory ones. The jury found Naugle 10% at fault.

Naugle says she started smoking at 20 in 1968 and made repeated attempts to quit, finally succeeding in 1993. Today, she has emphysema, requires a 24-hour oxygen and must travel in a wheelchair.

With apologies to Warren Buffett, it's only when the tide comes in that you learn who can swim. With waves of growth on the horizon for the tech sector, it's becoming increasingly apparent that Dell (DELL), the declining PC powerhouse, cannot swim. So maybe it's time for Michael Dell (pictured) to hit the showers. The company's founder returned in January 2007, supposedly to save the company after it spent years adrift. But his performance of late has been so poor that it arguably represents a breach of his fiduciary duty to shareholders. What makes Dell's slide particularly troubling is the apparent strength of other companies in the tech sector, including makers of microchips, personal computers and enterprise servers.

"We think this is a Dell-specific problem," Broadpoint AMTech analyst Brian Marshall said in an interview with CNBC. "They've had some trouble over the last few years guiding their company from a strategic perspective."

Dell (DELL) reported results late Thursday, saying its net income dropped 54% in the latest quarter amid signs the company isn't fully benefiting from the computer industry's fledgling recovery. Dell's results missed Wall Street's estimates. Shares fell over 6.5% ahead of the bell.

Goldman Sachs Group's (GS) shareholders finally found a voice. Some of the largest shareholders have asked the company to cut the size of its bonus pool and pass along more of its profits to investors, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the situation.

Sales of kid's clothing and jeans helped a slimmer Gap (GPS) deliver its best third-quarter results in this decade. Now, management says it's going after market share, even in this tough market.

The parent of The Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic posted net income of $307 million, up 25% over a year ago with the 44 cents per share in earnings hitting analysts' target for the period. Executives said the company reaped its best third-quarter operating profit in 10 years by increasing its profit margins through tweaking its merchandise mix and controlling costs.

It seems airlines will stoop to anything in their pursuit of saving or making money. Long gone are the days of free food on bargain flights. Be prepared to pay to check even one bag. As if those skinflint ideas weren't enough, AirTran Airways (AAI) is placing ads on the backs of tray tables where travelers can't help but see them during takeoff and landing, as yet another way to haul in more revenue.

As annoying, however, is that the discount carrier is actually "pleased to be able to offer exclusive deals and other promotions to our customers through this unique medium," said Tad Hutcheson, AirTran vice president of marketing and sales, in announcing the program Wednesday. The ads will appear in all 138 of the company's Boeing (BA) jets.

Dell (DELL) said Thursday that its net income dropped 54% in the latest quarter amid signs the company isn't fully benefiting from the computer industry's fledgling recovery. Dell's numbers missed Wall Street's forecasts, and the shares fell almost 6% in extended trading.

In the last quarter, Dell lost its ranking as the world's No. 2 personal computer maker, a slot now held by Taiwan's Acer Inc. Dell rivals such as Acer and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) have stolen market share in part by exploiting their bigger presence in retail stores. That has been a big weapon because consumer interest in little laptops called "netbooks" has helped the PC industry start to pull out of its worst slump in years.

AstraZeneca (AZN) has had a good week with its anticlotting drug Brilinta (ticagrelor). It impressed many observers by announcing positive results of a late-stage head-to-head study and a mid-stage study for Brilinta, and on Thursday, it said it had filed for Food and Drug Administration approval. Brilinta could be on the way to becoming a megablockbuster drug.

Study results for the experimental drug -- which fights acute coronary syndrome -- were first presented Sunday. For the study's 8,430 sickest patients, those taking the drug suffered fewer serious cardiovascular events (or deaths) than those taking Plavix, from Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) and Sanofi-Aventis (SNY).

Shoppers are looking for more casual pajamas, antibacterial toiletries and moderately priced underwear, executives at Limited Brands (LTD) say. The parent company of the Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works chains posted better than expected results in the third quarter and upgraded its forecast for the rest of the year, thanks to cost-cutting and improved sales of some products.

Limited Brands' net income was $6.1 million, after factoring out some gains from tax adjustments, compared to $4.2 million the same time last year. That translates into a gain of two cents per share; analysts had forecast a one-cent loss.

Two weeks ago, in a post about AT&T's spotty third generation wireless coverage, I posed a simple question: "How about an announcement telling customers how AT&T has been working with Apple to help boost the quality of its iPhone service?"

Now, that seems to be exactly what is happening. AT&T (T) reported on Tuesday that it had spent $65 million upgrading its wireless network in San Francisco since 2008. The phone company said it upgraded about 850 cell sites because of the rising demand put on its network since the iPhone started selling two years ago. That's good news to many iPhone users, whose phone has become synonymous with "dropped calls."

The ongoing battle for internet bookselling heated up on Thursday. Walmart (WMT) CEO Raul Vasquez is trash-talking Amazon (AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos (pictured), according to the New York Post: "If there's going to be a Walmart on the Web," Vasquez said, "it's going to be Walmart.com."

Oooh -- it's on.

The comment is the latest salvo in this fall's highly publicized pricing war between the titans. In October, Walmart.com dropped the price of 10 bestselling books to $10. Amazon followed suit; Walmart countered with $9, and Amazon followed. Walmart downed the ante to $8.99, and Amazon backed off -- only to see Target.com match Walmart.com, which ducked down to $8.98. Vasquez sums up his company's pricing strategy: "If they react and match our prices, we're going to continue to lower our prices."

Morgan Stanley (MS) CEO John Mack just loves regulators -- can't get enough of them.

Speaking Wednesday at a conference sponsored by Bloomberg News and Vanity Fair, Mack seemed to wish more regulators were camped out in his New York-based firm, watching its every move. He'd better hope that the Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce don't get wind of his heresy. And the anti-regulation crowd at the libertarian Cato Institute is probably none too happy with him, either.

AOL after Time Warner will be a substantially smaller company, at least in terms of the number of people it employs. The Internet pioneer, which is the parent of DailyFinance, revealed the rough outlines of a long-anticipated downsizing Thursday, saying it plans to reduce its global workforce by one-third, or 2,500 people, following its spin-off from Time Warner (TWX) next month.

To achieve that figure, the company is offering enhanced severance packages to volunteers who step forward between Dec. 4 and Dec. 11. (The spin-off will take place Dec. 9.) If the reduction can't be achieved solely through voluntary departures, the remainder will take the form of layoffs, with those workers receiving less-generous severance pay and benefits.