HBO GO

Written by Fermin Washington

Since we looked into wireless internet providers Minneapolis and chose a provider with a fast connection, we have been able to access HBO Go. HBO GO is a service that they provide if you subscribe to HBO through your cable service. It is basically like an HBO on Demand. You can watch any episode from any HBO show ever made. It doesn’t matter if the show is current or not. I have recently gotten into watching “The Sopranos”. It is about a modern day crime boss in New Jersey that has a family. It takes the scariness out of the mob and places them in suburbia. It was a hit show on HBO for a long time, but I never got a chance to watch it. Now that I can stream it on television, I am hooked. It is awesome. Last weekend my husband and I ended up watching the whole second season. We had watched the first season over the three previous weekends. We ended up not having a lot to do. It was a great relaxing weekend.

Lower Euro, Strong Dollar Sink Risk Assets

Following the lowest volume trading day of the year, stocks headed South as European bourses opened for the first time since last Friday, and, as is the usual case whenever europe becomes a focal point, stocks and commodities fell out of bed right at the open and continued to slide throughout the session.

The Euro hit the low for the year against the US dollar, checking in at an exchange rate of 1 Euro = 1.29416 US Dollar. Put another way, the US dollar was stronger than its been all year against the currency of choice (well, hardly a choice, rather an edict) on the Continent.

With so many hedgies short the dollar - a big mistake in some quarters - stocks looked too rich for most of the few remaining souls still trading in 2011. Being long the Euro is like thinking you'll start a camp fire in the middle of a hurricane. It simply goes against all logic, but that is the prevailing thinking of the investor class. May they lose all of their gains by Friday.

The lack of trading volume on Wall Street did not materially detract from the impulse to sell anything and just about everything. Oil, gold and silver all fell along with equities. All 30 Dow components finished the day in negative territory.

Oil eased off quite a bit as threats coming from Iran began sounding more like posturing than actual escalation, the general feeling being that the US military, if need be, would open the Strait of Hormuz in a matter of days if the Iranians eventually do try to shut down oil shipping lanes. Even for a nation as politically polarized as Iran, a general stoppage of oil shipping out of the Persian Gulf would be suicidal, though suicide is not out of the question when it comes to Iran.

Whether the US and its UN allies decide to impose sanctions and embargo Iran's oil shipments, which go primarily to India, China and points East is a matter the leaders have left open until the New Year, after Iran concludes its military exercises in the area.

Dow 12,151.41, -139.94 (1.14%)
NASDAQ 2,589.98, -35.22 (1.34%)
S&P 500 1,249.64, -15.79 (1.25%)
NYSE Composite 7,396.99, -111.38 (1.48%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,063,998,750
NYSE Volume 2,349,797,500
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 1138-4556
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 138-123
WTI crude oil: 99.36, -1.98
Gold: 1,564.10, -31.40
Silver: 27.23, -1.51

Nothing Happening on Wall Street as Holidays Wind Down; Sears First Christmas Casualty

The three-day Christamas holiday was a welcome break, but, for the traders, bankers, swindlers and everybody who isn't a teacher or member of the US congress, Tuesday was back-to-work day.

Not that it mattered much on Wall Street. On what looks - at first glance - to be the lowest-volume full session trading day of the year, stocks were essentially flat, trading in a tight range which had the Dow down as much as 24 points and up only about 34 points.

So, advice for this week is to watch as much football as possible, don't eat too many leftovers and forget the rigged, stupid markets. If today's trading is to serve as any indication, they aren't going anywhere until January.

One noteworthy item in today's news is worth mentioning, however, that being the imminent demise of one of America's iconic store brands, Sears Holdings (SHLD), the parent company for over 4,000 US and Canadian Sears and K-Mart stores, announced this morning that it would be closing 100-120 stores due to poor performance during the holdiays season.

This is nothing new for Sears/K-Mart, but if they eventually close only 100-120 stores, that would be something of a surprise. By this time next year, we could all be reminiscing over how the Sears bankruptcy (again) and the closings of 2000 stores was one of the top stories of 2012. Their credit lines are tight and, if there's any hint of a slowdown in the first half of 2012, they could be pulled or frozen, leaving the company very thin indeed.

Shares of Sears Holding were hammered without mercy, the stock losing 27% on the day (33.38, -12.47). SHLD traded as high as 82 and change near the end of October. Obviously, this was something some people knew a bit about.

Yep, the people running Sears and K-Mart into the ground (Target, Macy's, Wal-Mart, among others) is just what the US economy needs right about now: another wave of retail layoffs.

Also making headlines and jacking up the price of oil back over $100 today was more sabre-rattling from Iran, which has been conducting military exercises around the Strait of Hormuz since Christmas Eve, and today said that they would halt the flow of oil if foreign sanctions were imposed on its crude exports because of its nuclear ambitions. Well, we all know what europe and the US thinks of that. Get ready for $5.00 per gallon gas if the morons in Washington and Brussels continue on their failed policy path. Presidential candidate Ron Paul says that US policies are what makes people around the world hate America. He has a very valid point and should be the Republican nominee on his anti-war/foreign policy stance alone.

January is already setting up to be a real loser for stocks. Start shorting selected retailers (GAP comes to mind). The Christmas season is winding down and there's nothing on the horizon to make people want to shop more. At least the weather hasn't been horrible, which is great for humans, but bad for companies which sell coats, hats and winter wear, as well as being brutal on ski resorts.

Al Gore? Paging the promoter of global warming. 2012 could be your best year yet.

Dow 12,291.35, -2.65 (0.02%)
NASDAQ 2,625.20, +6.56 (0.25%)
S&P 500 1,265.43, +0.10 (0.01%)
NYSE Composite 7,508.33, -10.33 (0.14%)
NASDAQ Volume 942,962,875
NYSE Volume 2,034,548,000
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 2829-2797
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 272-78
WTI crude oil: 101.34, +1.66
Gold: 1,595.50, -10.50
Silver: 28.74, -0.34

Merry Christmas Traders, Winners, Losers and Sitters

Stocks extended the Santa Claus Rally on the last trading day before Christmas, as there was light trading and not a peep out of Europe, which seems to have settled down after the ECB generously granted about $639 billion in loans to over 500 banks in the region. Additionally, many European stock exchanges and all US stock exchanges will be closed On Monday, in observance of Christmas (which actually falls on Sunday).

A couple of sets of economic data were released prior to Friday's open. Durable Goods Orders showed a 3.8% gain in November, but the number was drastically reduced when transportation was excluded, knocking the gain down to a disappointing 0.3%. Also troubling was the lowered capital spending by businesses, which was down for the second month in a row.

Personal income and personal spending showed gains of 0.1%, both disappointments.

According to the Commerce Dept. new home sales for November were up 1.6%, to an annualized rate of 315,000, an all-time low, coming after last year's dismal showing of 323,000 new homes sold. The small gain pushed the number of new homes on the market to an all time low as home builders have found few takers and even fewer who could qualify for mortgages.

In conjunction with the existing home sales from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) that came out on Wednesday, the housing market continues to show the damage done by the 2008 financial collapse and the now-five-year-long housing bust. The NAR also revised their existing home sales figures from 2007 to 2010 down 14.3%, citing errors in the collection of data, including double listings, a decline in for sale by owners and house flipping.

November sales rose 4% from the previous month and 12.2% from a year ago, though the figures are now much lower than what was previously expected. With the revisions, the NAR acknowledged that the housing slump has been longer and deeper than previously thought.

And, in Washington, the Republican House backed down and decided ot pass the stupid two-month extension of the social security contribution reduction. Good Grief!

Merry Christmas and good night.

Dow 12,294.00, +124.35 (1.02%)
NASDAQ 2,618.64, +19.19 (0.74%)
S&P 500 1,265.33, +11.33 (0.90%)
NYSE Composite 7,518.66, +57.91 (0.78%)
NASDAQ Volume 970,584,500
NYSE Volume 2,226,056,500
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3491-2108
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 193-42
WTI crude oil: 99.68, +0.15
Gold: 1,606.00, -4.60
Silver: 29.08, +0.04

Unemployment Claims Lower, Stocks Higher

Stocks advanced modestly today as news flow was about as light as the volume, which was back to mid-summer levels.

Seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims came in lower than last week's, at 364K, not much of a big deal, since the figures are heavily massaged and almost certain to be revised higher, though, even on their face, the 364,000 people filing for unemployment, while more than 15 million are already out of work, is a bit of a canard. Consider the fact that the way the Labor Department keeps track of these numbers is merely an estimate, then adjusted to match their perception of reality. What's never mentioned is the lower participation rate in the labor force and the idea that there simply aren't that many jobs remaining from which employees can be disposed.

While Wall Street gobbles up phony, manipulated data without blinking an eye - because it suits their 1% agenda - various parts of the country are still suffering from very high unemployment, stagnant local economies and the general malaise stemming from too few jobs for too many people.

With that in mind, it shouldn't surprise anybody that the third and final estimate of 3rd quarter GDP came in at 1.8%, down from the 2.0% in the previous estimate. The big fall-off was in personal consumption, which economists will glibly label "de-leveraging," when the people actually counting their nickels and dimes refer to it as "broke." And that's what the consumer is this Christmas, broke, busted, in debt, with poor outlooks for the future. Those of you with young children should take particular note that your kids cannot achieve your standard of living if current economic conditions remain the way they've been for the past three years. And your standard of living deteriorates daily, thanks to overspending governments at all levels, a tight credit market (despite record low interest rates) and general theft of wealth via taxation, free reign of private utilities, inflation and globalization, to say nothing of the indentured servitude your kids will enter into when they decide to take out a college loan.

As far as Wall Street and our socialized government apparatus is concerned, that's all well and good. To the rest of us, it certainly is beginning to feel a lot like the Dark Ages and the era of feudalism.

Carry on. Christmas is just a few days off. The economic monstrosity the elitists have built will eventually come tumbling down. Unfortunately, most of the carnage will affect ordinary people, not those at the top of the food chain.

Happy Holidays, in advance. See you tomorrow for the anti-climactic end to the penultimate week of the year.

Dow 12,170.64, +62.90 (0.52%)
NASDAQ 2,599.45, +21.48 (0.83%)
S&P 500 1,254.07, +10.35 (0.83%)
NYSE Composite 7,457.31, +68.79 (0.93%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,474,976,375
NYSE Volume 3,398,761,750
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 4005-1623
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 234-63
WTI crude oil: 99.53, +0.86
Gold: 1,610.60, -3.00
Silver: 29.05, -0.20