Stocks closed modestly mixed on light volume Friday in the last full trading week of the year, which marked the third week in a row of overall gains. While drugmakers Pfizer and Merck put a damper on the Dow, robust earnings from Oracle and Research In Motion helped lift tech stocks.

Holiday sales are historically make-or-break for many retailers, and every year, several break -- and even go out of business. Others make large cuts in their store numbers and employees. 24/7 Wall St. combed through the numbers and spotlights 10 retailers that won't look the same next year -- if they're even around.

The indexed-based funds continue to see inflows increase even as other asset classes have seen investors pull back contributions in the face of market volatility. Laura Morrison, head of U.S. ETF trading and listings at NYSE Euronext says hitting this mark in 2010 bodes well for the industry going into next year.

That's the value a $200 million venture investment led by Kleiner Perkins this week implies. But that means Twitter would have a price-to-sales ratio of 840 compared to Facebook's 26 -- or Google's 8.7. And Twitter's growth may be stalling.

Forget political correctness. Business jargon is one of the last bastions of old-fashioned, rough and tumble crudity. Little surprise, then, that boardroom buzzwords sometimes veer into racism, sexism or -- in the case of "open kimono" -- a combination of the two.