The S&P 500 index is so far having a fine year, up a bit more than 20%. But several big-company stocks in the index have doubled, or better, over that time. Among the best-performers are some of Amerca's most well-known companies.

Here's a look at 10 of those and their prospects of advancing further -- or sliding back into the large pack of equities that have had only modest advances during the current bull market (all prices are as of the close on Nov. 9).

Some pieces of news are worth mentioning only in passing because they are interesting, but may not mean a thing. CNET says that over 100 people lined up at midnight to be early buyers of the new Motorola (MOT) Droid handset at a Verizon (VZ) store in Manhattan. The store in Herald Square had 500 phones in stock to meet the early demand.

The Droid is Motorola's answer to the Apple (AAPL) iPhone and Palm (PALM) Pre. Wall Street is hopeful that the Droid will lift the handset maker's fortunes, and has driven Motorola stock up over 30 percent in three months. After three years of lean sales since Motorola's flagship RAZR phone went out of style, the company may have a hit again. But one day's sales do not a trend make.

A car battery maker based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is poised to jump start the market for initial public offerings (IPOs).

The company, A123 Systems (AONE), makes batteries for electric cars, went public Thursday morning at $13.50 a share, with the goal of raising $380 million. A123 -- which counts General Electric (GE) and Motorola (MOT) among its backers -- got started in an effort to commercialize nanotechnology research at MIT. And it's just won a $250 million grant from the federal government to build a production facility outside Detroit.

Regrettably, it suffers from one little problem: it is losing lots of money. Specifically, it lost $40 million in the first half of 2009 on $43 million in sales, and lost more than $80 million last year on sales of $68.5 million. It faces significant competition from companies in Asia -- including Korea's LG -- which beat out A123 for a contract to make batteries for General Motors' Chevy Volt.

Some of the companies making headlines today:

Campbell Soup (CPB) is reporting fourth-quarter earnings, with analysts expecting the company to report earnings per share of 26 cents, in line with last year. Update: Campbell reported that adjusted net earnings rose 11 percent to $107 million compared with $96 million in the prior year's quarter, and adjusted net earnings per share grew by 15 percent to 30 cents in the current quarter (negatively impacted by currency exchange by 2 cents) compared with 26 cents in the year-ago quarter.

Morgan Stanley (MS) CEO John Mack is stepping down and will be replaced by retail brokerage head James Gorman. Mack has struggled to return Morgan Stanley to profitability as the firm has lost money since the third quarter of 2008 and reined in trading even as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) earnings hit an all-time high.