The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

1. A Swift Kick in the Trump

Cisco (CSCO Quote) CEO John Chambers may bore us to tears with his marathon conference calls. He, along with Hewlett-Packard's (HPQ Quote) Carly Fiorina, may even have tanked the tech market with their cautious talk this week. Still, we have no problem understanding why people respect them.

But Donald Trump? That, we just don't get.

Yeah, Trump continues to be one of those head-scratchers for New Yorkers. At the same time that his reality TV show has made him a nationwide business icon, the question in his hometown is, How did this guy manage to convince the world he's a good businessman?

Well, some of Trump's luster officially diminished Tuesday when Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts (DJTC Quote) said it plans to file for bankruptcy protection.

In a business where the house always wins, TH&CR has been a losing proposition. Revenue has declined. Operating income is down. Net losses, thanks to a bad bet on debt, have been rising. For the last eight years, the stock has been an unqualified dog.

As we look for someone to blame here, our eyes fall on the Donald himself -- who not only served as chairman and CEO, but also made sure that every property it owns or operates is named after him.

A man with a talent for publicity? Yes. A man who can look out for himself? Yes. But some sort of model businessman? To answer that question, maybe you should ask the minority shareholders of Trump Hotels, who -- as Timothy Connolly calculated on RealMoney -- got stuck with stock worth 3 cents a share.

Fret as you might about Cisco's bloated inventory or whatever. For us, Chambers on a bad day beats Trump any day.

2. Next Stop: The Island of Misfit Toys

Toys R Us (TOY Quote) said Wednesday it was thinking about getting out of the toy business.

Santa's Workload May Increase Toys may not be them

How sad is that? Here is a company with a name that screams out, "These are what we sell!" And now the company says, "Well, maybe not."

Perhaps this is a moment for serious reflection about the monumental shifts in the toy business -- the same type of shifts that caused fellow toy retailer FAO to declare bankruptcy last year not just once but twice.

Instead, we'll just pass along some recent research. If indeed Toys "R" Us goes ahead with its possible sale of its toy business, we're happy to report the availability of a useful Internet domain name: WeUsedToBeToys.com.

Toy Stor-age? H-P, Toys R Us got all synergistic

3. Hewlett the Dogs Out

Well, as miserable as the folks at Toys R Us must feel this week, they've got some seriously poetic company.

That's what we discovered Thursday morning, when in our ceaseless quest for good news on Wall Street, we pointed our browser over to Yahoo! Finance to see what was up with Hewlett-Packard.

H-P, you may recall, missed estimates and guided downward Thursday, blaming "unacceptable execution in Enterprise Servers and Storage." The stock lost 17% of its value by noon, and Fiorina spoke of "immediate management changes."

Well, once we arrived over at Yahoo! Finance, we found this little gem on Yahoo!'s summary page for H-P: An ad touting the synergies between H-P and, of all companies, Toys R Us.

Yes, indeed. With Toys R Us plus H-P, anything is possible. Just not this particular week.

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