Just when it thought the competition was leveling off, Blockbuster (NYSE:BBI) faces another nasty barrage. The company missed estimates yesterday, now the Street is forcing it to pay.

The movie rental industry is in trouble. Blockbuster is in the headlines today as its shares fall by as much as 30%. Is a bankruptcy filing in the cards?

It seems everybody, including The Wall Street Journal, is pitching a tent in the “too far, too fast” camp – the belief the stock market rally is premature, overdone in light of the economic conditions and unprecedented. At least three separate stories from yesterday’s paper posited such a theory.

Facing near extinction at the hands of Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) and increasingly popular pay-per-view movies, Blockbuster Inc. (BBI) announced that it would team with on-demand television powerhouse Tivo Inc. (TIVO) to sell and rent movies via digital video recorders (DVRs).

Auditors: GM Bankruptcy Necessary; Ford Plans to Reduce Debt by 40%; Wal-Mart Feb. Numbers Strong; Google Sitting on $8.6 Billion in Cash; Mortgage Delinquencies Hit Record High; Blockbuster Won’t File for Bankruptcy; Citigroup Shares Break the Buck; Oil Falls Below $44

Gold didn’t do a whole heck of a lot in the Far East yesterday. A smallish rally into the London a.m. fix [5:30 a.m. in N.Y.] got smacked, but managed to gain that back and a bit more by 9:00 a.m. on the Comex in New York. Then the usual not-for-profit seller[s] showed up, and that was it for the day. The low came in after-hours electronic trading…shortly after the Comex trading pits closed. After that, it managed to tack on a few bucks before Globex trading closed in New York at 5:15 p.m.

The movie-rental business is in the middle of a digital revolution. Internet-enabled TVs will allow direct downloading of movies. And industry leaders are battling to snap up a potentially huge long-term revenue stream. Andrew Snyder says investors should look to the firms like TiVo (NASDAQ:TIVO) and Sonic Solutions (NASDAQ:SNIC), who sell the technology to make this all happen.

Can you hear that, Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI)? It’s the sound of obsolescence. With the news that LG Electronics will be producing high-definition televisions that will stream movies from Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX), you can add another nail in the coffin for Blockbuster.

Circuit City Stores Inc. (CC) will close 155, or 20%, of its 566 U.S. stores by Dec. 31 and slash its domestic workforce by about 17% as the fledging electronics retailer scrambles to conserve cash and reverse six consecutive quarters of falling sales.