[xray]

Originally Posted by edwardcyh

Add TravelZoo to your radar.

Buy low, sell high.

[Ninjatune]

Originally Posted by xray

Buy low, sell high.

So that's how the market works.........

[xray]

Originally Posted by Ninjatune

So that's how the market works.........

If only...

The market is crazy as drunk sheep.

[xray]

The oil squeeze has just begun

Think the market is already tight? It's going to get tighter over the next five years under pressure from both the supply and demand ends. Here's why.

"World will face oil crunch in five years."

That's not exactly the kind of headline you want to read when crude oil is already at $73 a barrel. When things are this bad -- crude prices are up 12% in the past two months as of July 12 -- you don't want to hear that they're going to get worse.

Yet that's exactly what consumers -- and investors -- should expect, the International Energy Agency said in its latest Medium-Term Oil Market Report, issued July 9. The market for oil will get even tighter over the next five years. (And in case you're looking for a way out, natural-gas markets may be even tighter.)

link

APA anyone?

[edwardcyh]

Somebody's got his hands on this country's economical balls, and it's not NT.

[edwardcyh]

Thoughts on NTBK?

[edwardcyh]

U.S. Economic Growth Seen Slowing
Thursday July 19, 11:08 am ET
By Candice Choi, AP Business Writer
Leading Indicators Slip in June, Suggesting Nation's Economy to Slow

NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S. economic growth is likely to slow in coming months as the ongoing slump in the housing industry takes a deeper toll on businesses and consumers, a gauge of future business activity showed Thursday.

The Conference Board said its index of leading economic indicators fell 0.3 percent in June, more than the 0.1 percent drop analysts were expecting. The index had risen 0.2 percent in May after dropping 0.2 percent in April.

"The leading index has slowed in recent months, suggesting a possible softening of the overall pace of economic activity later in the second half of this year," the Conference Board's labor economist, Ken Goldstein, said in a statement accompanying the report.

Wall Street, meanwhile, focused on upbeat earnings reports. The Dow rose 78.61, or 0.56 percent, to 13,996.83.

Broader stock indicators also rose. The Standard & Poor's 500 index advanced 0.43 percent to 1,552.80, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 0.68 percent to 2,717.73.

The Conference Board report, designed to forecast economic activity over the next three to six months, tracks 10 economic indicators.

The five negative contributors were building permits, unemployment claims, consumer expectations, vendor performance and interest rate spread.

The positive contributors were weekly manufacturing hours, new orders for non-defense capital goods and stock prices. Manufacturers' orders for consumer goods and materials and real money supply held steady in June.

While the report captures the weakness in the housing market, it fails to reflect the economy's bright spots, said Brian Bethune, an economist with Global Insight.

"It's not picking up the strength of the global economy, the momentum of corporate profits driven by overseas sales and employment conditions," Bethune said.

That should offset some of the weakness in the housing sector, he said.

Also Thursday, the Labor Department reported that jobless claims dropped last week to the lowest level in two months.

The job market has held steady despite a yearlong economic slowdown that pushed overall growth to an anemic 0.7 percent in the first quarter, the poorest showing in more than four years.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in a second day of testimony before Congress on Thursday, repeated the Fed's belief that the economy will grow gradually this year, restrained by the housing slump.

The index of leading economic indicators has bounced up and down over the past few months, with offsetting increases and decreases suggesting that economic growth is likely to continue, but likely at a slower pace in the near term.

With the latest report, the cumulative change in the index over the past six months has dropped 0.7 percent, the Conference Board said.

http://www.conference-board.org

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070719/economy.html?.v=9

[edwardcyh]

Talking about "sin" stocks, how about UBET again?

I was in and out many months ago, but the current stock level looks very attractive.... I guess the better question is whether or not this little internet horse race bookie can survive against the mega racebooks out there.

[xray]

Originally Posted by edwardcyh

Thoughts on NTBK?

IDK, but they do have pressure to get it back.

[edwardcyh]

Originally Posted by xray

IDK, but they do have pressure to get it back.

There are two sides to this issue, and I really have no idea which side to take because I have seen both:

1. When stock is delisted and goes to OTC, any downward pressure is alleviated and stock has no where to go but up. If you think about it, by the time a stock hits OTC, sellers/doubters have already made their exit. Technically, a bottom is "formed."

2. When a stock goes OTC, no attention would be given to the stock. Analysts stop their coverage; mutual funds can't touch them; institutions (except for the risky few) generally won't go near them. The lack of attention brings very little upward momentum for the stock, and, if the company continues to sit idly without major news, the stock drifts lower and lower....

So..... it's a gamble, again.

[edwardcyh]

VoIP Provider Shuts Down
Wednesday July 18, 2:58 pm ET
By Matthew Barakat, AP Business Writer
VoIP Provider SunRocket Suddenly Closes Amid Tough Competition

VIENNA, Va. (AP) -- The abrupt shutdown of Internet phone carrier SunRocket left more than 200,000 customers scrambling for alternate service Tuesday and raised questions about the viability of other standalone Internet phone providers.

SunRocket, like other companies that only provide phone service over broadband, attracted customers with cheap plans and innovative features. But traditional phone and cable companies also lowered prices and started bundling their services.

The competition proved too much for the No. 2 standalone Internet phone company after Vonage Holdings Corp. SunRocket ceased operations without warning on Monday.

Nobody at SunRocket was available to explain its quick exit. SunRocket Chief Executive Lisa Hook did not return a call seeking comment Tuesday.

At the company's Tysons Corner headquarters, the phones went unanswered, the doors were locked and a cardboard sign with "Out of Business" scribbled on it hung inside the glass front door. The lights were on inside, and computers and fax machines remained in place, but all the artwork had been stripped from the walls.

Customers are out of luck. Many paid for their service well in advance, drawn by aggressively marketed service plans that cost $199 a year. It was not clear whether SunRocket customers have any recourse with government regulators.

Bill Adler, a writer and book packager who first reported the problems to the citizen journalism site NowPublic.com, relied on SunRocket for both his home number and a separate business line. Between the two lines, he estimated that he paid in advance for 18 months of service that he will not receive.

He is switching the numbers to another VoIP provider, but was told that could take as long as three weeks.

"Hundreds of thousands of people rely on this service," said Adler, who is relying on a Verizon line that he kept as a backup. "To not give people two weeks' notice ... is really irresponsible."

SunRocket's customer service line offered callers a brief recording: "We are no longer taking customer service or sales calls. Goodbye."

Adler admitted he's concerned that the new VoIP provider will go belly up just like SunRocket did, but he's enough of a fan of VoIP features, like e-mail notification of voice mail messages, that he decided to take the risk.

Meanwhile, a California company that is overseeing SunRocket's liquidation, Sherwood Partners LLC, said it is in talks with other service providers to take over portions of SunRocket's customer base. Sherwood spokesman Martin Pichison said he hoped to have such deals in place by Wednesday morning at the latest. He acknowledged that SunRocket customers are currently cutting their own deals for service with other companies.

Pichison said he did not know whether any deals would include credit to customers who paid their SunRocket bills in advance.

Many of SunRocket's customers will opt for Vonage or another VoIP provider, some of which are posting "Welcome SunRocket" offers on their Web sites, said Stephan Beckert, research director at TeleGeography, a Washington D.C.-based research firm.

"It will give them second thoughts about prepaying a year in advance," Beckert said.

Customers who aren't enticed by the prospects of bundling their phone service with their cable or Internet provider will be willing to consider standalone VoIP companies because of the price advantage, he said.

SunRocket attracted more than $60 million in venture capital funding, including $30 million a year ago, he said.

Beckert said he was surprised that SunRocket burned through its funding so quickly, but said VoIP providers walk a delicate tightrope. On the one hand, VoIP's primary appeal is that it offers cheaper service -- sometimes less than $20 a month for unlimited calling -- than traditional providers. That makes it difficult to raise prices.

At the same time, aggressive marketing campaigns needed to boost a brand name and reach potential customers can wreck a bottom line.

In SunRocket's case, customer growth started strong but faded in the last year. In the last three quarters, SunRocket's growth began to lag behind that of the industry as a whole, according to numbers compiled by TeleGeography. As SunRocket faded, cable companies like Comcast Corp. took off.

"If you were betting on SunRocket, you were betting on a horse that was moving slower than the rest of the field," Beckert said.

The leading standalone provider, Vonage, has more than 2 million customers but it also has faced slowing growth rates and financial losses. It suffered a legal setback earlier this year when it lost a patent infringement case to Verizon Communications Inc. and a judge issued an injunction barring it from signing up new customers.

The case is currently on appeal and the injunction has been stayed, but Vonage has warned in court papers that its viability is precarious if the initial verdict and sanctions are allowed to stand.

Internet phone carriers are not regulated as tightly as traditional carriers. The Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday that VoIP carriers are not subject to the same rules that would apply to traditional carriers regarding discontinued service.

State regulators are generally barred under federal rules from overseeing VoIP providers, said Andy Farmer, a spokesman for the Virginia State Corporation Commission, a regulatory agency. The commission received several calls from SunRocket customers who lost service, and all such calls are being referred to the FCC, Farmer said.

While SunRocket's demise caught many off guard, there had been signs for several weeks that the company was struggling. It laid off a large number of employees July 3, just days after the firings of two top executives and the resignation of a third.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070718/sunro...oses.html?.v=2

OMG.... I almost switched like 3 months ago to try them out. I sure am glad I didn't!

[edwardcyh]

LOL.... came across a S&P500 company, and simply couldn't stop laughing...

The company name is BJ Services.