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In North America, the big focus for independent exploration and production firms is on natural gas. Yet, there is still a good amount of oil to be tapped (assuming prices remain relatively high).

So this week, Denbury Resources (NYSE: DNR) capitalized on the opportunity by shelling out $3.2 billion for Encore Acquisition (NYSE: EAC). It's not cheap, coming at a 35% premium. Yet, the deal will create a powerhouse in oil exploration and production in North America.

interestingly enough, in a sign that credit markets are loosening up, JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) has agreed to provide a revolver of $1.25 billion to bridge the deal.

The rally in the stock market and the return to profitability for some of the top banks has been hailed as a sign of a turnaround -- and proof that the interventionist financial policies of the past year worked.

But not so fast. In reality, a huge chunk of the profits banks are earnings can be directly attributed to their ability to borrow money at artificially low interest rates.

According to a report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that below market interest rates offered by The Federal Reserve accounted for 41% of JPMorgan's profits. At Bank of America, the number was 47%.

Here are some highlights from last week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) higher Q3 earnings topped expectations but revenue was in line.
• Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) posted better-than-expected Q3 results, but shares sold off.
• Allegheny Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ATI) was downgraded on concerns about its Q4 guidance.
• Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) shares fell after it posted a deeper-than-expected quarterly loss.
• Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) fell victim to profit taking despite reporting better-than-expected earnings.
• CSX Corp. (NYSE: CSX) better-than-expected Q3 earnings sent shares higher, despite a decline in revenue.

I don't think anyone could have had a positive reaction to Bank of America's (NYSE: BAC) third-quarter report, which was released on Friday. According to Bloomberg, management lost $1 billion in the past three months. Big ouch on that one. The financial institution bled 26 cents per diluted share. No earnings beat here, either. Wall Street sent shares down 4.6% by the end of yesterday's trading session.

The year-ago period was a happier time. Back then, Bank of America was rolling in the dough, posting a profit of 15 cents per share. What a difference 12 months makes. Looking at the nine-month record perhaps gives a small amount of comfort to shareholders. The company made 39 cents per diluted share. Of course, that doesn't sit too well next to the $1.09 per diluted share booked in the comparable period. But at least it's not a loss, know what I mean?

For the past 48 hours people have been asking me if I thought the market would pull back after the Dow Jones Industrial Average surpassed the milestone of 10,000. Business journalist's and guru's alike have suggested that there might be some profit taking or "selling into strength" and the recent highs would not hold.

As the market proved yesterday, up about a half percent across the board, with the Dow closing at 10,062.94, up 47.08 in last-minute buying -- that is just a lot of noise.

U.S. stock futures were mixed to lower Thursday morning, trading in a tight range as investors look beyond Dow 10,000. Another wave of earnings is due out today, including from financial giants Citigroup (NYSE: C) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS). Also, a slew of economic releases will be reported, including inflation and two key regional indexes. [[Update 8:15 a.m.: Futures turned lower after Goldman's results.]]

Wall Street rallied Wednesday on earnings optimism, following upbeat profit reports from Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM). It was enough to lift the Dow industrials to its first close above 10,000 in a year. But some, like my colleague Dan Burrows, think it won't last.

Today could have been a day to look out for more economic numbers, yet all that mattered was that the DJIA hit 10,000. To put this into context, the first time that the DJIA hit 10,000 was back all the way in 1999...

That being said, here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Top Analyst Upgrades
Top Analyst Downgrades
Top Day Trader Alerts
Top Stock Rumors

Tuesday morning greeted us with earnings from banking behemoth JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM). The company said it earned $3.59 billion and that it nearly doubled the amount of money it saved for loan losses in the third quarter.

Breaking the results down into per-share earnings, JPM trounced the consensus estimate. The bank earned 82 cents per share, nearly double the expected 49 cents per share. Quarterly revenue increased to $26.62 billion from last year's same-quarter revenue of $14.74 billion.

U.S. stock futures were sharply higher Wednesday morning following surprisingly strong profit and outlook from Intel and much stronger-than-forecast results from J.P. Morgan Chase. In fact, stock futures rallied enough to send the Dow Jones Industrial Average within reach of the 10,000 mark.

Giant chip maker Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) reported late Tuesday earnings and revenue that topped Wall Street's estimates. It also issued an upbeat outlook, saying that as it has been saying for months, the PC market has been rebounding.

JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) reported third-quarter earnings Wednesday morning. Its reported 82 cents earnings per share is much more than the 49 cents EPS that was expected by Street analysts. However, somewhat sobering is its loan losses, which are still high and are expected to remain that way for the foreseeable future.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says you take your life into your own hands if you fade the opening in today's market.

A year ago with the futures up, all you could think of is how much you wanted to "fade" that opening, how great it would be just to lay out any shorts into strength. You could choose pretty much anything going into earnings season.

The techs? Last good quarter. The banks? A travesty. You didn't even know if the banks you are short would survive. The oils? Free fall. The metals? Amazing downward pressure coming from hedge fund redemptions. The insurers? Will they make it? Retail? The balance sheets looked terrible going into what would be a terrible holiday selling season. The autos and auto-related? Disaster.

Goldman Sachs upgraded the banking sector last week, and this coming week we'll get a chance to see whether Goldman and other big banks reporting third quarter results will live up to the expectations of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) looks set to be this week's earnings game winner. Analysts expect this dividend-paying company to report a third-quarter profit of $4.24 per share, which is 57.3% higher than in the same period of last year. Revenue for the period that ended in September is expected to be $11.0 billion. So far, the full-year forecast is for $17.74 per share on $44.6 billion.

Analyst upgrades:

• Piper Jaffray upgraded Viacom (NYSE:VIA) to Overweight from Neutral to reflect the improving ad market and better ratings at key cable networks. The firm raised its target on shares to $35 from $29.
  
• Baird upgraded Research in Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) to Outperform from Neutral on valuation as it views the recent weakness as a buying opportunity. The firm keeps an $84 price target on shares.
  
• Jefferies upgraded Usana (NASDAQ:USNA) to Buy from Hold as it believes direct selling companies have been gaining momentum. The firm raised its target on shares to $44 from $37.
• AK Steel (NYSE:AKS) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank.
  
• First Merit (NASDAQ:FMER) was upgraded to Perform from Underperform at Oppenheimer.
  
• Spectra Energy (NYSE:SE) was upgraded to Conviction Buy from Neutral at Goldman.

Who does our Treasury Secretary speak to most of the time? Yup. You guessed it. It's the big three bankers.

Who are they? First, we have Lloyd Blankenstein, CEO of Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE GS). Then we have Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Company (NYSE JPM) and then CEO, Vikam Pandt of Citigroup Inc. (NYSE C).

You are probably also wondering how do we know this? The Associated Press did a review of Geithner's calendar under the Freedom of Information Act.

In his first seven months on the job, Geithner made at least 80 contacts with the "big three." Not only that Geithner jumps to the phone when they call. They are the dominant players on Wall Street who can move markets and even economies.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer is not convinced that what was bad a week ago has suddenly turned good.

Feels almost too good to be true. Once again, did we dodge the more than 3% to 5% decline? Once again have we put the trouble behind us? Did we have just enough October scare to inoculate?

I remember a week ago thinking there weren't enough "October's the roughest month" articles perhaps because those who wrote the "sell in May" and "sell in September" pieces felt chastised. I thought that the word had come from editors on high-stop being so bearish already.

But then by Thursday we were all well aware of the power of Rocktober and next thing you know people were whispering crash by Friday.

Last week, we saw Shanda Games Ltd. (NASDAQ: GAME) raise a cool $1 billion in its IPO.

And today, there was another big-time offering: Talecris Biotherapeutics Holdings picked up $950 in its IPO (issuing 50 million shares at $19 each). This is the second largest IPO of 2009.

Talecris is one of the largest producers/marketers of plasma-derived protein therapies, dealing with things like chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP), primary immune deficiencies (PI), alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, bleeding disorders, and severe trauma.