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Los Gatos, California (CNN) -- A line began to form at the Apple Store here on the eve of the iPhone 4S release, as is often the case around the world during the company's product launches.

At the front of this particular line Thursday, Steve Wozniak sits in a Pico armchair, sipping Diet Dr Pepper and scanning e-mails from his white iPad.

The Apple co-founder, who gets a paycheck of "a couple hundred dollars every two weeks" and still maintains his status as employee No. 1 in company records, hasn't been able to stay put for long. Crowds of Apple fans, family friends and people who have seen him riding his Segway around the neighborhood stop to say hi, take pictures and ask for his autograph.

"I'll be taking a thousand pictures," Wozniak whispered with a smile. "I'm going to sit down and see if I can get a little e-mail done, because there's no way I'm going to get it all done today."

Seconds later, an enthusiastic man in a yellow polo shirt positioned his two kids near the computer legend and pleaded for him to pose. Wozniak immediately sprang to his feet with a grin on his face.

People brought iPhones, iPods and iPads for Wozniak to sign with a marker. "Now your phone is not going to be worth as much when you sell it," Wozniak said to one woman before signing her iPhone 4.

Fans gave Wozniak their condolences over the late Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder who died last week. Flowers, partially eaten apples and notes were laid in front of Apple Stores around the world, including this one, where the memorial was set just a few feet from Wozniak's spot in line.

Wozniak explained that sending flowers or onetime celebrations are the kinds of traditions he and Jobs agreed were unnecessary. However, he talked openly about how much he misses his high-school pal, with whom he built a technology empire.

Wozniak acknowledged that he could have easily made one phone call to Apple and gotten the phone he's waiting in line for, but he didn't. He has yet to play with an iPhone 4S or its Siri voice-controlled assistant. He has said previously that he does not ask colleagues about products in development because he does not want to ruin the surprise for himself.

Steve Wozniak autographed fans' Apple products outside the Los Gatos store.

"I want to get mine along with the millions of other fans," Wozniak said. "I just want to be able to talk to my phone."

Analysts have expressed disappointment in the iPhone 4S, but Wozniak, who looks forward to every new Apple device, is especially animated when discussing it. Over the past year, he has not been shy about his anticipation for voice-assist technology, like the new 4S tool called Siri.

People who say they have waited in lines behind Wozniak during past Apple releases have written spiteful messages online claiming he had used his celebrity to cut in line just before the stores opened. Wozniak said that he is usually further back in line at these events but that fans in front of him insist that he get his devices first.

On Thursday, there is no dispute about Wozniak's place in line. His Segway, which he rode from his nearby home, is parked in a corner near the store's entrance. Wozniak arrived about noon, and he plans to stay overnight in order to get the new iPhone first, he said.

(CNN) -- The love affair between BlackBerry devotees and their mobile communicators is becoming strained, and some of them made the quarrel very public this week after a service outage.

Fans often discuss the intimate details about why they are attached at the hip to smartphones made by Research in Motion -- the clack-clack of the tiny keys, the feel of the trackball or square pad on their thumbs, the informative indicator light calling out for attention. They affectionately call it the "CrackBerry."

After the recent outage, which RIM says was caused by a server error, some longtime BlackBerry users are writing goodbye letters on blogs, and on message boards operated and frequented by the CrackBerry collective. Richie, a British member of a Web forum called CrackBerry, summed up the concerns, saying RIM has been "chipping away our faith" in the company's ability to satisfy customers.

In interviews with reporters, RIM executives issued apologies, which they also made public in a recorded video, but they avoided questions about whether they planned to offer incentives as compensation for the millions of customers affected by the outage. RIM did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter.

By comparison, after Sony restored its network this summer following a lengthy outage, the company compensated users of its subscription service, and gave free games and movie rentals to all users.

Netflix has offered small discounts to customers affected by technical troubles.

Despite RIM's lack of public comment, an AT&T customer in Cleveland wrote on the CrackBerry message boards that he received a credit on his bill when he called to complain about the outage.

RIM customers still holding onto their faith in the company should pay close attention to a conference being held in San Francisco next week. The pressure on BlackBerry from competitors is mounting, and RIM's promised next-generation models, with dual-core processors and large touchscreens, are overdue.

A CrackBerry forum member, posting under the alias N8star, says he is giving up his BlackBerry Torch 9850 "after years of being treated like a battered spouse by RIM," he wrote. His wife urged him to switch to an iPhone, and he says he will acquiesce.

Jim Kerstetter, the executive editor for technology website CNET, published an editorial on Thursday titled "RIM, you're dead to me now." He writes that he has defended BlackBerry, despite the lack of multimedia features, but that the recent outage has spurred him to switch phones and operating systems.

RIM still has a comfortable hold on corporate buyers, who snap up large orders for employees. Security experts tend to trust BlackBerry more than other smartphone platforms.

However, even tech departments in companies are becoming more lenient on this policy. David Hurst, who was waiting in line to buy an iPhone 4S for his wife at a store in Atlanta, said her company "has finally approved for her to switch from BlackBerry to iPhone, and her BlackBerry is just falling apart."

In the now crucial mobile-consumer market, Google and Apple both lead BlackBerry in sales, a trend expected to continue into the crucial holiday shopping season. A combined 69% of smartphone buyers say they plan to get either an Android phone or iPhone, while only 8% indicated that BlackBerry was at the top of their shopping lists, according to an NPD study from this summer.

1. Jordyn Wieber will be NBC's "it" girl in 2012. Wieber, 16, exceeded considerable hype in her first year as a senior gymnast. She capped a 2011 all-around trifecta by edging Russian cofavorite Viktoria Komova, also 16, for the world championship, one of her three medals won this past week in Tokyo. Wieber had put everyone on notice in March, defeating 2010 world champion Aliya Mustafina at the American Cup, and in August, winning the U.S. title by the largest margin since the sport scrapped the perfect 10 in 2006.

Turnover among elite female gymnasts is staggering -- the top U.S. all-around finisher at the Olympics or worlds has been different each of the last eight years -- but Wieber has staying power. She's young enough to still be on the rise, and her primary domestic competition is either coming off major injury or too young to compete in London. Wieber also has the personality that lends itself to NBC's prime-time audience, beginning with her adoration of a certain teen singer with a similar sounding last name. Nastia Liukin, Shawn Johnson and Alicia Sacramone are all bidding for Olympic returns, but Wieber will be the primary gymnastics attraction next summer.

2. The U.S. women are the best in the world, which is ominous. The Americans captured the team title for the third straight time at a world championships the year before an Olympics. That didn't work out so well in 2003 and 2007, as they were bumped to silver at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics. But they should be bigger favorites this time around given their utter dominance in Tokyo. The U.S. led after every rotation despite choosing three gymnasts from a pool of five while every other country had a pool of six (Sacramone tore her Achilles in training, and alternate Anna Li was out with an abdominal injury). Only one member of the U.S. quintet had been to a world championship before -- Aly Raisman. Now they're all proven big-meet performers.

Then consider who could be swapped into the lineup next year: Liukin, Johnson, Sacramone, 2005 world champion Chellsie Memmel, 2009 world champion Bridget Sloan and two-time world all-around medalist Rebecca Bross. In 2012, every country will be limited to five gymnasts (down from seven in the 1990s and six in the 2000s), making the competition for spots on the U.S. team every bit as tough as the Olympics themselves. The U.S.' biggest flaw going into the world championships was a lack of depth on uneven bars, which just happens to be a strength for Liukin, Memmel, Sloan and Bross. At this point, Russia looks like the only nation with any hope of keeping the U.S. women from their first Olympic team gold since Atlanta's Magnificent Seven.

3. Kohei Uchimura may become the greatest of all time, but he's not there yet. The Japanese superstar won four medals and steamrolled to his third straight men's all-around title, winning by a whopping 3.1 points, the same margin separating second place and 13th place. No other man or woman has won three straight world titles, and here's the kicker: Uchimura is just 22 years old. The other recent dominant men's gymnasts -- Alexei Nemov, Yang Wei -- didn't hit their Olympic peak until their mid-20s. So he will probably be even better in London.

Uchimura's routines aren't the most difficult, but nobody can match his precision. His closest pursuers don't compete with him -- they are in awe of him. The way he smiles after each breathlessly stuck routine, he, too, may be a little astonished. But to call him the perfect gymnast, or to anoint him as the greatest in history, is premature. By his stratospheric standards, Uchimura at times looked human in Tokyo. He fell on his most pressure-packed routine, high bar in the team finals, which almost allowed the U.S. to overtake Japan for silver. Uchimura then ran out of gas in event finals, spinning off the pommel horse and having a major form break on rings, missing the medals in both.

EUGENE, Ore. -- For two seasons now, quarterback Darron Thomas and tailback LaMichael James have been the keys to Chip Kelly's sports-car offense, teaming up to win 17 of Oregon's last 19 contests. However, for most of the second half of the No. 9 Ducks' Saturday night game against No. 18 Arizona State, neither Batman nor Robin graced the playing field.

Oregon lost James to a dislocated elbow in last week's game against Cal, in which he posted his third-straight 200-yard rushing performance. Thomas went down with a leg injury in the third quarter Saturday after competing 13-of-17 passes for 187 yards and two touchdowns. The Ducks, now without two players who'd accounted for 74 percent of their total offense on the season, fell behind 24-21 shortly after Thomas exited.

Big whoop.

The Ducks (5-1, 3-0 Pac-12) won going away, 41-27, putting up their usual 536 yards in the process. They scored 17 unanswered points after Thomas jogged to the locker room, the offense quickly adjusting with a new quarterback, redshirt freshman Bryan Bennett, and its defense seeming to grow stronger as the game went on.

"They understand that people getting banged up is part of the game," said Kelly. "We don't talk about injuries, we talk about opportunities for someone else."

Kelly has been doing this for five years now, dating to his days as Oregon's offensive coordinator. The star running back's not available? Oregon goes to the air more, gaining 187 of its 245 yards through the air in the first half. The quarterback goes down? Enter Bennett, a fleet-footed redshirt freshman who ran the triple jump in high school. Executing the read-option like a veteran, Bennett broke off 36- and 18-yard runs on his second full drive of the half.

"He's kind of fast, isn't he?" joked Duck offensive lineman Carson York. "We're really lucky to have a really good backup."

Bennett did this once before. As a sophomore at Crespi High School in Encinco, Calif., he took over as starter after current UCLA quarterback Kevin Prince went down with a knee injury in the first game of the season. Oregon didn't ask him to do too much (he attempted just five passes), but he managed the game well. Offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich said he made the right read "nearly 100 percent of the time" on those zone-run plays.

"I've been put in this position before," said Bennett. "It taught me that all you can do is stay poised."

Oregon even briefly lost James' backup, Kenjon Barner, for a brief stretch of the third quarter. No worries. The Ducks have explosive true freshman De'Anthony Thomas, who ran for a 16-yard touchdown and a 29-yard gain. And Barner came back in plenty of time to wear down the Devils (5-2, 3-1) in the second half, finishing with 171 yards on 31 carries.

ARLINGTON, Texas -- The field was strewn with empty bottles of ginger ale and red, white, and blue confetti. The white banner was already hanging over the steel façade beyond center field: 2011 AMERICAN LEAGUE CHAMPIONS, it said. The stadium speakers were blaring "We Are The Champions." The faithful were in the stands, still on their feet. It was nearing 11 p.m. in the heart of Texas and the celebration was just getting started at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. But as Nolan Ryan walked off the field to the roar of the crowd, the team president and CEO barely cracked a smile.

"We haven't finished what we set out to do," Ryan said. "We've still got four more games to win."

While they haven't won a World Series in their 51-year history, the Texas Rangers have officially arrived as an American League superpower. For 50 years they were one of the worst organizations in all of professional sports -- until last October, they were the only major league franchise never to have won a playoff series. Now here they are, headed to a second straight Fall Classic after their 15-5 romp over the Detroit Tigers in Game 6 of the ALCS. George W. Bush and Dirk Nowitzki were among the 51,508 in Arlington to watch Texas become the fifth AL team to win back-to-back pennants since the introduction of the LCS in 1969. New York, Boston: step aside.

"They proved in this series that they were the team that should represent the American League in the World Series," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "We're a class organization. They are a class organization. And I tip my hat to them."

From the first day of spring training these Rangers were on a mission to prove that their magical 2010 season wasn't a fluke. They went on to win a franchise-record 96 wins during the regular season and, after rolling over the Rays and Tigers in the first two rounds of the postseason, are now only the third AL franchise other than the Yankees over the last 40 years to reach the World Series in consecutive years (the Blue Jays in '92 and '93 and the A's dynasties of the early '70s and late '80s are the others).

It didn't look good for Texas in the early innings of Game 6. Miguel Cabrera got the scoring going in the top of the first, ripping a 96 mph fastball from Derek Holland for a home run over the right-field wall, just beyond the reach of Nelson Cruz. In the top of the second, Jhonny Peralta hit another opposite-field home run to right field.

VERDUCCI: Rangers ride unusual winning formula back to World Series

Then came the fateful bottom of the third. With two men on, Michael Young drilled a slider from Max Scherzer down the left-field line for a two-run double to tie the score. Adrian Beltre then broke a 0-for-13 slump with an RBI single, and the Rangers took a 3-2 lead. After Scherzer walked Cruz to load the bases, Leyland decided he'd seen enough from his starter.

Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we absorb an unforgettable, and in some cases unfathomable, Week 6 in the NFL.....

• Well, well, well, maybe all isn't lost in Philadelphia after all. That was your basic season-saving win for the Eagles at Washington Sunday -- at least for now -- and the 20-13 outcome went a long way toward restoring a bit of order in the NFC East, where all four teams remain bunched within two games of each other top to bottom.

You can't overestimate how much Philadelphia desperately needed that one. For the embattled Eagles, it was the difference between being 1-5 and trailing 4-1 Washington by a fat 3.5 games, or riding into their bye week with a bit of momentum at 2-4, just two games behind the now first-place Giants (4-2).

A loss to the Redskins, which would have been Philadelphia's fifth straight, and the Eagles' downward spiral might never have been broken. The vultures would have continued to circle over Andy Reid's head, and the next two weeks would have been used to write his coaching obituary in the city he has toiled in for 13 years now.

But don't drop that hammer just yet, because Reid and his underachieving Eagles aren't finished. Far from it. Not only did Philadelphia stop the bleeding with its first win since opening day in St. Louis, but also the Eagles might just be about to get healthy again. After the bye comes a three-game home stand, the kind that has the potential to turn a once-lost season all the way around.

Philadelphia will face Dallas (2-3), Chicago (2-3) and Arizona (1-4) in Weeks 8-9-10, with another home game, against New England, looming in Week 12. That's four of their next five games coming at home, and the Eagles can at least enter that stretch coming off their first division win since pulling off that miraculous comeback at New Meadowlands Stadium last December. Take at least three of those four at home and the "Dream Team'' can legitimately fantasize about salvaging the mess-in-the-making that 2011 appeared to be as Week 6 opened.

Maybe all Michael Vick and Co. needed was to play in Washington again, where the Eagles have won 10 out of their past 12 games. Remember, FedEx Field was the site of Vick's tour de force performance a year ago on that Monday night in Week 10 -- when he ascended back to superstar status by accounting for six touchdowns in Philadelphia's jaw-dropping 59-28 win. Vick didn't need to do anything nearly that astounding this time, but he came through with a very solid 18 of 31 passing day, for 237 yards, one touchdown and one interception. He also picked up some key yards with his feet, supplementing a strong LeSean McCoy-led Eagles rushing game with 54 yards on seven carries.

Besides Vick, Philadelphia got strong games from several of its glitziest playmakers on offense (McCoy ran for 126 yards and a touchdown; receiver Jeremy Maclin had five catches for 101 yards), and the vilified Eagles defense held Washington to just 287 total yards, 42 yards rushing, 1 of 10 on third downs, and intercepted Redskins quarterback Rex Grossman four times. Free safety Kurt Coleman, just re-inserted in the lineup on Sunday, had three of those picks, leading the defensive charge. That ought to help new Eagles defensive coordinator Juan Castillo sleep a little better for the next two weeks.

So now there's suddenly a little hope in Philly. The Eagles didn't blow a 20-3 halftime lead this time -- like they did two weeks ago at home against the 49ers -- and they didn't sink to new depths with another fourth-quarter meltdown. They won in tough and impressive fashion, and at least for this week started resembling the talented team almost everyone favored to win the NFC East. We should have all seen this one coming against the Redskins, because the Eagles roster is simply too good and too deep to look that bad for weeks on end.

As bad as 2011 has been in Philadelphia, a turnaround was bound to happen sooner or later. The Eagles just hope it came soon enough to matter. A season that appeared to be in peril is not over yet. The Eagles are breathing again, and the race in the NFC East is still a four-team affair.

• What a bizarre and out-of-control post-game scene that was in Detroit, with Lions head coach Jim Schwartz and 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh making Harbaugh and Pete Carroll's little collegiate midfield exchange of a few years back seem almost quaint by comparison.

Settle down, gentlemen. Both of you. Without knowing exactly what Harbaugh said to his fellow intense and tightly-wound head coach as they shook hands, it certainly looked like Schwartz overreacted in the heat of an emotional moment, after a difficult and last-minute defeat. Both Harbaugh and Schwartz have turnaround teams that are going places, and they've done great work in instilling some much-needed fire and dedication into their organizations. But you can go overboard and lose perspective on game days, and that looks to be the case here at first glance. Who knows, maybe Harbaugh asked Schwartz: "What's your deal?''

Somewhat sadly, the postgame coaches' handshake has become a must-see event after NFL games in recent years, and that's not a good development. But something set Schwartz off, and I have a feeling he's going to be lighter in the wallet because of it. Look for the NFL to dip into his paycheck in reaction to his overreaction. As for Harbaugh, Captain Intensity, lighten up on the handshake, Jimbo. When you win, try to act like you've been there before, because you have.

As for the 49ers' upset of the Lions, not the Schwartz being upset at Harbaugh undercard, the Lions finally paid the price for once again trailing at halftime. This was the fourth consecutive game that Detroit faced a deficit at intermission, and you can't get away with that particular routine forever. The Lions beat the Vikings, Cowboys and Bears despite trailing at halftime, but another slow start and being down 12-10 to San Francisco after two quarters contributed to Detroit's first loss of the season.

The Lions are still in great shape at 5-1, but they clearly haven't arrived to the point where they can bank on digging out of a halftime hole each and every week. Detroit was just reminded that it's a 60-minute game, and you've got to play start to finish.

• But give it up for the 49ers, who haven't been 5-1 since 1998, when Steve Young was still throwing passes to Jerry Rice. San Francisco made a ton of mistakes in Detroit -- committing 15 penalties for a whopping 120 yards -- but still found a way to take another huge step in its renaissance season under Harbaugh. The 49ers practiced with 7-foot loudspeakers around their field last week to try to prepare for Ford Field's din, but it really didn't help, because they committed three first-quarter false starts.

One of the real stars of San Francisco's winning effort was running back Frank Gore, who had a remarkable 121 yards after just six carries on Sunday, and finished with a season-best 141 yards and a touchdown on 15 attempts. Gore had a 55-yard run, and another 46-yard gain, setting up his 1-yard scoring run. After a slow start to his season, Gore is looking like one of the NFL's best running backs once again.

LAS VEGAS -- It was supposed to be a day of potential glory and fortune for Dan Wheldon as he had a chance to split a $5 million bonus with a fan if he could win Sunday's IndyCar World Championships at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Instead, it became one of the darkest days in the history of the sport as the two-time Indianapolis 500 winner was killed in a horrific crash on Lap 11.

Wheldon, who won the Indy 500 in 2005 and 2011, was driving one of 15 cars involved in a fiery massive crash between Turns 1 and 2. His car went airborne and flew high into the fence before landing upside down on the edge of the wall. Wheldon's helmet hit the wall, causing an "unsurvivable head injury," said IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard, who announced Wheldon's death, at 33, just after 6 p.m. ET.

The impact was so severe the roll hoop broke off the top of his car. Wheldon was unconscious when safety workers arrived at the scene of his crash. A yellow tarp was quickly placed over his car to block the others from seeing the damage inside his cockpit.

The red flag was displayed by IndyCar Series officials, stopping the race. The remaining drivers later attended a meeting, where the decision was made to end the race. Approximately 10 minutes after that gathering concluded, they climbed into their cars and formed rows of three on the racetrack for a five-lap tribute to Wheldon. Crew members of every team, along with series officials, lined the edge of pit road as spectators stood politely and applauded on each of the five laps.

"Amazing Grace" and "Danny Boy" were played in a solemn tribute to the likable driver from Emberton, England, who earlier in the day had agreed to a full-time ride with team owner Michael Andretti for the 2012 season, to replace the departing Danica Patrick. Wheldon is survived by his wife, Susie, and two sons, Sebastian, 7, and Oliver, 7 months. They were at the race along with other family members.

As Dario Franchitti pulled into the pit area, his wife, actress Ashley Judd, awaited the driver on pit road. She pulled a floppy sun hat over her eyes to hide some of the tears. When Franchitti climbed out of the car, they hugged. Then Franchitti hugged his father, George, as both men broke down in tears. He then turned back to Judd and they shared a tearful embrace. Franchitti called Wheldon one of his best friends.

The race had been scheduled to be followed by the 2011 Championships Celebration, an awards banquet, on Monday night at Las Vegas' Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, but IndyCar officials announced late Sunday that the event had been canceled.

A public memorial for Wheldon will be held at a later date.

In a cruel twist of irony, the accident was grimly reminiscent of a championship battle Franchitti was involved in back in 1999. On that day, his best friend, Greg Moore, was killed in virtually the same type of impact in a single-car crash on Lap 10 in the final race of the season. Moore's father, Ric, was at Sunday's race, his first time attending an IndyCar race since his son was killed 12 years ago.

Franchitti finished second in that's year's championship and won this year's over Will Power, but had no reason to celebrate.

"One minute you're joking around during driver intros and then the next moment Dan's gone," Franchitti said. "I told [Dan's 2-year-old son] Sebastien Thursday night at the parade, that I've known his dad since he was your size. Dan was 6 years old when I met him. We lost -- I lost -- everyone in the IZOD IndyCar Series considered Dan a friend. He was just one of those special, special people. I'm trying to hold it together."

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Google is killing off Buzz, the company's 18-month-old first try at creating a social network.

Buzz will be shut down "in a few weeks," Google said in a blog post Friday, as the company redirects its social focus toward its new Google+ network. The move is part of a broader effort at Google to cull its product portfolio and shut down low-profile offerings. "More wood behind fewer arrows" was the way Google put it in the July blog post announcing its first wave of product eliminations.

Google added a few more projects to the scrap heap on Friday, including Code Search, a tool for finding open-source code on the Web, and Jaiku, a Twitter-like microblogging service that Google acquired in 2007.

Eliminating Buzz will help Google close the book on one of its most explosive missteps. When Buzz launched in February 2010, Gmail users were furious to discover that the network's default settings automatically set members to follow their most e-mailed contacts -- and then posted those contacts publicly after a user "buzzed" about something.

One woman wrote a profanity-laden, much-circulated blog post about how Buzz revealed some of her Internet activity to her abusive ex-boyfriend and his friends.

Within two days of Buzz's launch, Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) made changes to the defaults that largely satisfied the concerns of users and organizations dedicated to information privacy.

But the damage was already done: Critics wondered openly about Google's dedication to user privacy. The debacle lead to a class-action lawsuit and a settlement deal with the Federal Trade Commission, which now requires Google to undergo annual privacy audits.

Users won't be able to post on Buzz after the shutdown, but they will be able to view their existing content on their Google Profile and download it using an export tool called Google Takeout.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- While Europe's debt crisis will remain a focus on Wall Street this week, investors will also have a barrage of corporate financial results to sift through as earnings season kicks into high gear.

The week ahead includes reports from nearly half of the Dow's 30 components, including Intel (INTC, Fortune 500), McDonald's (MCD, Fortune 500) and General Electric (GE, Fortune 500), and 96 members of the S&P 500 including, Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500), Southwest Airlines (LUV, Fortune 500) and Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG).

S&P 500 company earnings are expected to have climbed 23% in the third quarter of 2011, according to earnings tracker Thomson Reuters. Revenues of the companies in the benchmark index are expected to have risen 10%.

Stocks posted stellar gains last week, with the S&P 500 (SPX) and Nasdaq (COMP) delivering their best weekly performances since 2009. They'll start the week at the high end of the range that they have been trading between since early August.
Bring profits home and create jobs? Maybe not

Whether they'll be able to break above those levels will primarily depend on the health of and guidance from corporate America, said Paul Zemsky, chief investment officer of multi-asset strategies at ING Investment Management.

"Earnings will determine the moves in the market," said Zemsky. "If companies aren't positive, we could see stocks continue to drift in the territory they've been in for two months. "

Zemsky said investors will pay especially close attention to companies with global footprints to get their take on the pace of worldwide economic growth, amid rising fears of a slowdown.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Finance ministers from the world's largest economies pledged Saturday to take "all necessary actions" to stabilize global financial markets and ensure that banks are well capitalized.

"We will ensure that banks are adequately capitalized and have sufficient access to funding to deal with the current crisis," the Group of 20 finance ministers said in a statement issued after a two-day meeting in Paris.

The meeting comes as officials in Europe move closer to an agreement on a comprehensive plan to secure the banking system and resolve Europe's long-standing sovereign debt problems.

The plan, outlined by European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso last week, will be discussed in detail at a meeting being held by the European Council in Brussels on Oct. 23.

"We heard encouraging things from our European colleagues in Paris about a new comprehensive plan to deal with the crisis on the continent," said U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner in a statement.

Geithner added that European leaders "clearly have more work to do on the strategy and the details."

But he sounded optimistic about the support the plan has received from Europe's two largest economies. "When France and Germany agree on a plan together and decide to act, big things are possible," he said.
Europe: Many hurdles, little time

European leaders have been under pressure to decisively resolve the debt crisis in Greece and increase the firepower of a recently overhauled bailout fund to provide a stronger "backstop" for other euro area nations struggling with unsustainable levels of debt, such as Italy and Spain.

The 27-nation European Union has also been grappling with the threat of a banking crisis, amid fears in financial markets that banks do not have enough capital to withstand the shock of a contagious sovereign debt crisis.

The G20 ministers welcomed the recently approved overhaul of the European Financial Stability Facility, which now has power to intervene in the sovereign debt market and loan money to governments that need to recapitalize banks.

The EFSF is still widely seen as needing additional "leverage" to address both the sovereign debt and banking crisis simultaneously.

EU officials are expected to discuss ways to give the €440 billion fund greater "firepower" at a meeting later this month, but increasing the amount of money the fund controls has been ruled out.