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BusinessWeek reported Friday that Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony (NYSE: SNE) and Germany's Bertlesmann Media Group, is finalizing moves to offer music downloads free from Digital Rights Management. Sony's move follows recent comparable efforts by the other three major labels, Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG), Vivendi (OTC: VIVEF)'s Universal and privately-held EMI.

DRM protections -- largely a downloading standard since the network-crippling heyday of peer-sharing site Napster -- do more than just thwart duplication and discourage piracy. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s iTunes site uses the protections to lock users into using purchased tracks that work only through its free namesake application and on Apple's iPods and iPhones.

Got your portfolio rejiggered for 2008 yet? You might want to check out the latest edition of StockWatch: Between the Bells featuring BloggingStocks contributor Timothy Sykes. The author of An American Hedge Fund: How I Made $2 Million as a Stock Operator & Created a Hedge Fund recommends sectors to avoid and suggests stock plays for the coming year, including Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Baidu.com (NASDAQ: BIDU) and Evergreen Solar (NASDAQ: ESLR).

To an inordinate degree of fuss, British rock group Radiohead self-released its seventh album, In Rainbows, on its website back in October, employing a pass-the-hat pay model whereby downloaders could pony up what they wished for the album, from as much as 100 pounds (about $200) to as little as virtual pocket lint.

The band has kept mum on the actual download figures, as well as their take, but a comScore study on In Rainbows' early success estimated that just 38% -- less than two in five downloaders -- bothered to put up anything at all. comScore's findings -- which Radiohead has disputed -- suggest the band gave out some 744,000 copies of the record for free, not to mention all those unrestricted downloads that bewilderingly saturated the file-sharing piracy sites, despite their free availability.

Have you girded your stock portfolio against recession? You may want to take some tips from the latest edition of StockWatch: Between the Bells with Kevin Depew. The Minyanville.com executive editor offers some stock plays to head off a broad downturn in the market, and explains how large-cap companies are moving the market.

Think those discounted financial stocks are ripe for plucking? Bide your time, BloggingStocks contributor Peter Cohan says. In the latest edition of StockWatch: Between the Bells, the Babson College instructor and editor of The Cohan Letter explains why it's too soon to return to the financials and offers up some sweeter stock plays.

Main market news here: Before the bell: All eyes on Fed

The Financial Times reported Tuesday that Citigroup (NYSE: C) has trimmed its structured investment vehicles by more than $15 billion since October.

STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM), rival to Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN), announced it is buying video-chip maker Genesis Microchip (NASDAQ: GNSS) for $336 million. The deal pays $8.55 a share, a 60% premium on Genesis' closing price Monday.

Home lender Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE), has adopted stricter limits and broader guidelines for when it will buy out delinquent loans from mortgage pools.

Speaking in Tokyo on Tuesday, Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer said the electronics maker plans to network its PlayStation 3 video game console and its other electronics in 2008.

Stock futures were tightly mixed Tuesday as investors looked ahead to this afternoon's interest rate announcement from the Federal Reserve Board. The Fed is widely expected to lower the Federal Funds rate -- the rate of interest banks charge each other -- by a quarter point, although forecasts of a half-point cut are growing.

In addition to the Fed's afternoon announcement, the Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce will release wholesale inventories for October this morning at 10.

On Monday, the Dow closed at 13,727.03 and the S&P 500 finished at 1,515.96, each higher by three-quarters of a percent. The Nasdaq reached 2,718.95, 0.47 percent higher. U.S. stocks were boosted by anticipation of interest rate cuts and an improved outlook on home sales. The National Association of Realtors reported yesterday that pending-sales of homes had climbed 0.6% in October, increasing for a second-straight month following a long skid.

After Monday's close, Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) announced it will discontinue subprime mortgage lending and plans to cut 2,600 jobs in its home loans division. WaMu will write-down the value of its loans unit by $1.6 billion and now expects to report a loss in the fourth quarter, echoing similar news Monday from Swiss bank UBS (NYSE: UBS).

Top grocer Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) is due to report quarterly results on Tuesday; analysts expect EPS of 35 cents per share. Tax preparer H&R Block (NYSE: HRB), initially scheduled to report second-quarter earnings Monday, now says it will not file on time.

Overseas, the dollar was little changed against the euro, and rose from 111.67 to 112.11 yen. The Nikkei 225 climbed 0.8% to close above 16,000, while London's FTSE 100 slipped in morning trades.

Main market news here: Before the bell: UBS announces $10 billion in write-downs

Citigroup (NYSE: C)'s board is meeting early this week and could name former Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) executive Vikram Pandit as its next CEO, following Chuck Prince's resignation last month.

Private equity firm Blackstone (NYSE: BX) is expected to join with China's sovereign wealth fund in a bid for mining firm Rio Tinto (NYSE: RIO). Blackstone's bid follows a $140 billion offer from BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP), which Rio Tinto rejected. If Rio Tinto accepted any bid from Blackstone, the private equity house is expected to divide up Rio Tinto's assets.

In an unprecedentedly large overseas acquisition in Japanese pharma, Eisai Co. of Japan announced a $3.9 billion deal to buy Minnesota drug maker MGI Pharma (NASDAQ: MOGN) to bolster its cancer treatment efforts.

Stock index futures pointed to a higher opening Monday as investors expect a quarter-point interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve when it meets tomorrow.

Anticipation of a rate cut offset news from UBS (NYSE: UBS) that it will write down around $10 billion in subprime holdings, and that it expects a loss when it reports fourth quarter results in February. Muting the write-downs, UBS announced that the government of Singapore had invested $11.5 billion in the Swiss bank.

All eyes fell on the Fed Monday, with few other economic indicators scheduled. The National Association of Realtors is expected to report a 1 percent drop in October's pending home sales in its 10 a.m. report.

Although some analysts saw potential for a half-point cut in the Federal Funds rate, the interest rate banks charge each other, consensus seemed to expect just a quarter-point cut from the Fed, especially after latest data indicated labor market conditions remained stable in November. The Fed could also lower the emergency discount rate, currently 5 percent, to match the 4.5 percent Federal Funds rate, and hold the latter steady.

Among the few companies reporting earnings Monday, income tax preparer H&R Block (NYSE: HRB) is expected to announce a 35-cent loss per share when it reports earnings after the market closes Monday.

Foreign markets were flat Monday, with European bourses sagging slightly while Japan's Nikkei 225 finished down 0.2 percent at 15,924.39. The dollar slipped in Europe, fetching just 0.6816 euro.

Looking for stocks to stick under the family Miracle Tree? In this edition of StockWatch: Between the Bells, Amey Stone, business author and editor of BloggingStocks, shares a few stock plays for the holiday season.

Won't your little rocker be stoked if you take a stake in Activision (NASDAQ: ATVI)? The long-time video game maker has had monster success with its Guitar Hero franchise and should enjoy heavy Christmas sales of the latest volume, Guitar Hero III. For the fashionable in your family, Amey suggests Deckers Outdoors (NASDAQ: DECK), makers of the popular Ugg boots. Deckers' shares slipped a little at mid-month but are recently back on the rise.

Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) has landed a blow in its ongoing tilt with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) for online advertising supremacy, announcing a deal with Adobe Systems (NASDAQ: ADBE) to add dynamic ads into PDF documents distributed over the web.

Good on Yahoo for sifting out another scrap of free web space to stick an ad on -- the leading web portal depends primarily on ad revenue, and this should add a little to its bottom line, or at the very least, keep Google from capitalizing. Newsletters, e-zines and other PDF providers should also benefit from a little more ad revenue without the fuss of negotiating rates and artwork from their sponsors.

With an easier means to embed ads in the document, niche content providers are that much more likely to adopt the PDF as a medium. And the ads don't show up on print-outs -- welcome news to folks concerned about the integrity of their content.

On news of the deal, Adobe was trading up 1.31% at $42.58 Thursday afternoon, while Yahoo sat at $26.32, 0.46% higher.

It's easy for me to preach "shop local" from my blogger's perch in Manhattan. While many companies are headquartered here in New York, boutiques, bodegas and mom & pop shops rule this roost. Aside from Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) -- c'mon, they're ubiquitous -- and maybe Rite Aid (NYSE: RAD), I'd have to hike a mile or so to reach the nearest publicly traded business.

But committing my Christmas dollars to local businesses is a tradition I picked up from my ex back in North Carolina, and I think I'm all the better for it -- and all the better served.

For starters, you're far more likely to be wowed with the service from a small shop. At a local business, often you deal directly with the shop owners, who have an undeniable stake in your transaction. Because their equity and livelihood depend upon the repeat business of customers like yourself, you're worth more to the small business owner than the customer queued up at a crowded cash register at Circuit City (NYSE: CC) or Sears (NASDAQ: SHLD), and that value is evident in the transaction.

Happy Thanksgiving from the BloggingStocks staff and contributors! Here are some leading financial stories around the world today:

Stocks plunge in China
China's Shanghai Composite Index sank 4.41 percent Thursday to fall below 5,000 -- 18.2 percent off its peak of 6,092 in mid-October -- adding evidence of an end to the China bubble. Shares of PetroChina (NYSE: PTR), the world's largest oil company, fell 4.6 percent to 35.11 yuan.

ArcelorMittal takes charge in China
ArcelorMittal (NYSE: MT), the world's leading steelmaker, is taking a controlling 73 percent stake in China Oriental Group Co. Earlier this month, ArcelorMittal bought a 28% stake in the iron and steel maker for $647 million. The Luxembourg-based company also disclosed plans for steel plants in India's Jharkhand and Orissa states.

Air France-KLM's Q2 profits soar
Air France-KLM (NYSE: AKH) on Thursday posted second-quarter profit of $1.1 billion, nearly double the $539.7 million reported in the same period last year. The top European airline also said it had not dismissed the possibility of offers for Italy's Alitalia or Spain's Iberia airlines.

Facebook has had a breakout year -- BloggingStocks probably should have listed the social networking site among our Hot Products of 2007. It sold a small stake to Microsoft for $240 million, and its success with encouraging third-party add-ons forced News Corp (NYSE: NWS)'s MySpace and even the mighty Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) to change tactics. But as Tom Taulli and The Wall Street Journal addressed yesterday, Facebook's stock with privacy advocates is dropping over its über-creepy Beacon targeted advertising method.

On Facebook, you're as private as you are modest. You have the option of laying bare your bookshelf, Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) queue and purse contents for all your friends and neighbors to pan through, or you can leave all that business blank and keep your fancies as mysterious and enigmatic as you are, you unique snowflake. My profile tells users -- not to mention advertisers -- that I like to put on CNBC and dust my marriage-prohibitive record collection. Consequently, I've got E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC) and the occasional ironic t-shirt vendor after me, greeting me with animated ads whenever I log in.

By now, web users have learned to deal with e-tailers and ad-serving scripts tracking their behavior, realizing that oft-maligned cookies effectively just save you the effort of typing your password. This is reasonable targeted marketing: I pay nothing for a service, and in exchange, some vendor imagines it got a little closer to a selling me something.

Where Facebook and all the participating advertisers that sail with her cross the icky line is with Beacon. Beacon goes beyond serving up targeted ads -- it takes my purchase information from participating advertisers and broadcasts it endorsement-style to all my Facebook friends, as well as any others in my network who, for whatever illness or boredom, feel like probing my Facebook essence.

If you still hope to put a Nintendo (OTC: NTDOY) Wii under the tree this year, you best stop reading right now and run out to the mall. Supplies of the breakout gaming console are reportedly slim already, and should virtually disappear on Black Friday.

Bad news for you procrastinating shoppers, but good news for Sony (NYSE: SNE) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). Though sales of Microsoft's Xbox have spiked in recent months -- directly attributed to the debut of the Xbox-exclusive Halo 3 game -- sales of Sony's PlayStation 3 were outpaced by Wii last month by more than four-to-one. Expect that to change through year's end as overflow demand for the scant remaining Wiis rings up sales of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles, with parents refusing to retreat home empty-handed.

Of course, the real winners in this are the early bird eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) merchants, salivating at the prime seller's bonanza about to unfold. eBay currently lists several lots of multiple Wiis -- perhaps you can get your Grinch on, buy a bunch of 'em up and flip them through the shopping season. I'm just saying.

Then again, you could always get your kid tennis lessons, maybe a Louisville Slugger. No kid's going pro in Wii-sports anytime soon.

Shares of Microsoft were up 2% in early afternoon trading Tuesday, while Sony shares sat 1.37% higher.