NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Okay, it's official. The dog days of summer have arrived. How do I know? Because the restaurants in Manhattan are ...well not quite empty... but you can get a table at the hot ones. Whoopee! The bad news: all the shrinks leave town in August and the crazy people (read, everybody here) will get crazier.

BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB: Okay here we go again with another big cap stock. Yup, we got some bad news here. Justice Department launches a probe. But this is hardly the first fly in BMY's ointment. Problems go back to when it was set to distribute Imclone's Erbitux drug, which as you remember was at the heart of the Martha Stewart scandal. The company's had problems with its product pipeline (what pharma company hasn't?). CEO Peter Dolan's been under fire for years. Stock (Charts) was $60 in '01...now it's $24. Stock has a P/E of 14. Now I'm not saying you sidle up to this puppy all whole-hog like, (how about that mix of metaphors), but you may want to nibble or even see if she drops some more.

XM RADIO: Okay here's that old line again: "Great to use ya', bad to own ya'!" In other words with this company, you want to be a customer, not necessarily an investor. Like Warren Buffett says about the TV business ... as in no one ever made any money in it. Yesterday the company reported a bigger second quarter loss compared to last year and cut its subscriber forecast for the second time in three months. Stock seems to be going down the drain again. Remember when the stock got down to single digits in '03? Goes from $40 and down and then back up and down. I don't think XM's going away, because I think the Feds will want two companies (as in Sirius also). Interesting over 5 years XMSR (Charts) beats SIRI (Charts) ... but not over shorter periods. That might continue. In any event, go ahead subscribe to 'em, but I would avoid.

ROPER: This company makes controls ... competes with the likes of Agilent. Profits up 35 percent this morning and it upped its guidance for the year. Hello! This stock (Charts) has been a BEAUTY over the past three years, going from $15ish to $43. Pride of Duluth, Georgia. Just completed the acquisition of an imaging business. Operating margins are climbing at this company, and so too the stock price, perhaps. You go!

Loose Change: Okay so my wife and I are going to go see Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" on Monday. Wonder if I can take it. I choked up on the trailer ... Speaking of movies, from a UBS report: " Time Warner continues to face difficult comps year-to-date. ... Through Week 29 of 2005, the studio had two films gross in excess of $200 million worldwide (Million Dollar Baby, $215.9 million and Constantine, $229.6 million)"...Constantine was that big, who knew?

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E-mail Andy Serwer at serwer@fortunemail.com

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