I had the pleasure of writing a series this spring on the Top 25 Stocks for the NEXT 25 years. I researched over 300 companies to come up with the list of what I thought were the best 25 stocks to own for the next 25 years. But something was missing that I now want to address in a new series.

The very nature of picking 25 stocks which hopefully would perform magnificently for 25 years excluded many great companies that were already executing well but could not be included because of their high current market capitalization. Some examples were "game changing" companies like Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL). Back in May, Apple had a market capitalization of about $90 billion. But I couldn't include it in my top 25 unless I expected Apple's market cap to reach several trillion dollars. I love Apple, but that's probably not in the cards. By the way, Apple today is worth $130 billion.

Another example of a game-changing company is McDonald's (NYSE: MCD). This once staid, stuck-in-the-mayonnaise company has re-invigorated itself in the past couple of years and has seen its market value more than double to $66 billion. I'd also throw in that camp Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT), which since January 2004 has seen its own market capitalization double to $51 billion. Caterpillar changed and fortified its business model starting back in late 2003. By the way, Apple,Caterpillar and McDonald's are still game changers---meaning the shares are a buy.

Back on July 20, I wrote about the Dow Jones Industrial Average having a good chance of hitting 15,000 by year's end. I was early -- really early. The Dow had just hit 14,000 on July 19, and we went through two and half months of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, otherwise known as FUD. FUD took the Dow and similar indices down a painful and laborious 7-8%. The credit market crisis shook the markets globally until the European Central Bank and the U.S. Federal Reserve intervened with liquidity and the lowering of key interest rates. Since those actions were taken, the markets have begun a measured, but uneven recovery. Where do we go from here?

Markets react to news and events quickly and decisively. When the mortgage markets could not secure solid underwriting commitments, the dominoes began to fall. The financial stocks took the nastiest hits as the balance sheets were certain to absorb multi-billion dollar hits. Countrywide Financial (NASDAQ: CFC), the nation's largest issuer of mortgages, needed to tap credit lines and drew Bank of America's (NYSE: BAC) commitment of $2 billion in a preferred stock purchase. The credit market today is steadier, although still not on solid footing. The major brokerage firms announced their collective August 31 quarter-end results, and they were not shocking since expectations were already lowered. But they were not the disasters as some expected.

This strategy has invited competitors to take a different approach. Earlier this year, Eastman Kodak Co. (NYSE: EK) unveiled new printers that cost a bit more upfront but use much cheaper ink. Today, Xerox Corporation (NYSE: XRX) announced that it will sell a new printer that costs more than a laser printer but produces color copies for the same cost as black and white. If you've ever had to buy new color ink cartridges, you know that this is a big improvement.

The new machine uses Xerox's solid-ink technology that reduces per page costs by as much as 80%, according to today's New York Times. Kodak has found that people print more when they know that pages, especially color pages, are cheaper. Some analysts are skeptical that companies are willing to abandon HP for cheaper color copies, and that HP's 40% market share is safe. But a test program for the new Xerox machine at a real estate company that prints lots of color brochures found that annual copying and printing costs were reduced from $1 million to $200,000. I think a lot of companies will have trouble saying no to savings like that.

The Wall Street Journal [subscription required] reports that Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) intends to sell desktops and notebooks in China through Chinese retailer, Gome Group, whose 1,000 stores in 168 Chinese cities will help Dell expand its presence in the world's second-largest PC market by shipments.

Dell, which stumbled in this decade by missing a market shift away from corporate -- which liked its direct selling strategy -- and towards individual PC purchases, is trying to regain its lead with the return of its founder Michael Dell to the CEO slot. But in China, Dell is number four behind Lenovo Group Ltd and Hewlett Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) -- deriving $6.6 billion of its revenues, 12% of its 2006 total, from sales in Asia Pacific and Japan.

Dell's deal with Gome Group will give it a chance to sell to individual Chinese buyers, who like to try out a PC in a store before buying it. And with revenues growing at 25%, the Chinese market is certainly big and getting bigger. But Dell did not say how much of each PC sales dollar it will share with Gome Group. If Dell matched HP's 4.8% PC net profit margin, it could add $48 million to its bottom line for every $1 billion of additional revenue through Gomes.

That's nothing to sneeze at, but it represents a mere 1.7% of Dell's most recent 12-months net income of $2.8 billion in net income.

Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates,. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has has no financial interest in Dell, Lenovo, or Hewlett Packard.

According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) has set up a partnership with Gome, the largest electronics retailer in China.

Gome has 1,000 stores in 168 cities. Dell has had only modest market share in China, behind HP (NYSE: HPQ), Leveno, and Acer. This is primarily due to its lace of retail distribution.

The WSJ adds "China's PC market is expected to sustain annual growth of 25% in the coming three to five years, according to IDC's estimates."

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ) has inked a deal with Time Warner Inc.'s (NYSE: TWX) AOL unit to install AOL's web browser start page, toolbar and search on HP personal computers sold worldwide. This may not sound like a big deal, but it is, since the vast majority of computer users never change the default start pages that load when their Internet Explorer web browser starts up. Having AOL's search engine, which is powered by Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), as the default is a biggie as well. HP, after all, sells more desktop and laptop computers than any company on the planet at this time.

AOL will use its custom "myAOL" homepage as the default website on all HP PCs, which will encourage new HP owners to use AOL's services like email, news, finance and weather. While some computer users complain of unwanted "bloatware" that ships on new PCs, the practice of providing new PC owners with default relationships to service providers such as AOL is likely to continue.

Now, what is unanswered here is how this will affect HP's existing relationship with internet portal Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) which has been in place for almost one year. Since HP did not make a single reference to this relationship, one must surmise that HP is dumping Yahoo! completely from its systems and replacing Yahoo!'s services with AOL's services. If that is the case, Yahoo! just earned a huge black eye and AOL came out very rosy. With HP competitor Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) using Google services as the default on its PCs, this leaves Yahoo! in a tough position without a top-tier PC partner.

Today's important stories from TheStreet.com: Cramer's Advice for the Fed Might Surprise You, Top 10 Value Stocks With Increasing Dividends

You know you are in trouble when fans at the big game want to talk about the Federal Reserve's meeting. Well, then again, if you are an Eagles or Giants fan, that's pretty much all that's worth talking about.

The impact, though, is simply too outsized to be trusted. The setup is too hard. The decision is too un-gameable. I haven't liked this setup since we started rallying last week, and I liked it less when we moved up Monday morning.

We have been lucky, ever since the cut in the discount window rate, to live in a world where you might wake up and find that the Fed was taking action. The mystery has benefited every group in one way or another, from the homebuilders to the oil companies.

Enough people have been buying Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) , or Barrick Gold (NYSE: ABX) and Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) to make the last few weeks a pretty good time.