Rally Monday!

• Nice rally on Wall Street! Volume looks a little light at first glance, though. The past week we have seen rallies on light volume and sell-offs on heavier volume. That usually doesn't turn out to the bulls' advantage over the long term.  Financials had a great day, and the market does need those to keep moving up.
• Craigslist CEO asks for apology.  Hey, how many folks are tearing out their rose gardens as I type because they no longer need to barter with the Craigslist "rose" currency?
• ATT may offer data plans cheaper, but will it cost you more?  Think about it, as they make a lot of money with overage charges on text messages, why not get the same thing going with data usage?
• Sex and the City's Cynthia Nixon to marry girlfriend (neither pictured). No wonder Miranda and Steve couldn't make it work.
• Critical concession talks between General Motors Corp. and the United Auto Workers are being overshadowed by a public spat about the automaker's plans to import vehicles from other countries while it closes 16 U.S. factories.  Again, the union doesn't seem to understand that those union contracts are what led GM here. 
• I saw Star Trek over the weekend.  Great flick. 
• Folks are upset that SlingPlayer mobile for the iPhone only works over wi-fi, as ATT doesn't want to see heavier data drains on their network.  HELLO.  You can download the Orb app and stream content from your PC to your iPhone over 3G.  That includes TV hooked up to your PC, videos on your PC, music on your PC, and any content available on your PC. 

Picture is of Annie Wersching, who plays agent Renee Walker on 24.

Same Data, Different Result

• Sure, the market fell today. But it's the same market that was going up with the bad news earlier. It's not like the underlying data has changed much.
• Despite that, weak retail sales and home foreclosures get the blame today.  Volume seems to be picking up, so it'll be interesting to see how long IBD keeps their "market is in a confirmed uptrend" comment in the Big Picture.
• IBD is out at 5pm EDT, right?  Minutes away...  Drum roll...
• I've been writing about the seasonality stuff recently.
• Natural Gas (UNG) pulled back. Interesting entry over at Adam Warner's on UNG that anyone who plays it may want to read.
• Green Shoots Withering from WSJ blog.
• SlingPlayer Mobile comes out for the iPhone, but is limited to wi-fi only.  No 3G network.  So if you're in your house, you might as well just go into the family room and watch the TV.  Just saying.  And at a hotspot, you only have 2 hours a day.  You can use a mobile version on a Windows mobile phone all you want with ATT.  But not the iPhone.  Read about it.
• Of course, you can cut out the middleman and just get the Orb app for the iPhone and stream your TV and PC content over ATT's 3G all you want.  Till the cows (the size of schnauzers) come home.  I don't know why anyone would pay for Slingbox + SlingPlayer mobile.  But that's just me.

Baseball Opening Day with an iPhone

• The iPhone MLB app is fantastic. I listened to parts of 4 games today, and most of the Dodgers-Padres game. Not bad for $9.99 for all season.
• I grew up listening to Vin Scully call the Dodgers games. He still sounds great. And there's something about listening to a game on the radio (er, iPhone) compared to TV. I feel lazy watching a 3 hour game on TV. But on the radio there's more multi-tasking involved. Scully does a great job painting a picture.
• Listened to quite a bit of the Mets-Reds and Yankees-Orioles, too. Funny thing was CC Sabathia, the $161 million man, get rocked by the Orioles. They were hitting him. He was walking batters. It was ugly. On the otherhand, the Mets Santana pitched a gem against the Reds.
• Oh, the market? Again, the late day surge has to be considered a bullish sign.

Wednesday Randomosity

• Nice day in the market, as the economic data comes in better than expected. The SP500 is also defending the 50dma nicely.  Nothing wrong with the rally, yet!
• Is Geithner counting TARP dollars correctly?  GAO and the Treasury have different numbers.  Nice.
• The Republicans propose to simplify the tax code.  The GOP plan would offer a dramatically simplified tax code in which couples would have the option of a 10 percent rate on the first $100,000 of income, with a 25 percent rate thereafter, with the first $25,000 of income exempt from taxation. Single could get a $12,500 exemption and a 10 percent rate on income up to $50,000.
• New iPhone app from Major League Baseball (MLB at Bat 2009) that includes streaming audio from games.  $9.99.   Not bad, huh?
• Also, search for the DirecTV iPhone app.  Yes, you can program your DVR from your iPhone!
• Sales tax went up a penny in CA today.  Yippee.  I think car registration went up, as did the income tax rate.

Thank God It's Freida Randomosity

• I bought my first ebook on $AMZN for the $AAPL iPhone Kindle application. You buy it from Amazon's website, and when you run the iPhone Kindle app, the book shows up via Amazon's Whispernet.  The reader seems to work just like other readers I've tried.  The cool thing is not having to transfer the ebook to the iPhone.  It's just there when you turn it on.  Plus, Amazon's book library is pretty extensive.  Also seems like Amazon pricing is better than the other ebook vendors I've used. 
• It's a winner.  Like Freida Pinto.  And thank goodness it is Friday.  It's been a long week.
• The market is tanking as I contemplate what to have for lunch.  Maybe rice and beans.  No, that may be coming later for all of us.  When the futures were up this morning, I could almost sense the false optimism on CNBC.  As if even though the futures were up, just give it time.  The sellers were still hitting their snooze buttons.  Once they got up, the selling commenced.
• Looks like the Nasdaq is catching up after a few months of outperforming.  I think I need air quotes around "outperforming."  Right?
• The Japanese Tokyo stock price index (TOPIX) is at a 25-year low.  Nice.
• $GM at lowest price in 75 years.  Nice.
• The job market is nearing 1982 levels.  The government’s broadest measure of unemployment and underemploymentwas 14.8 percent in February. That includes some of the people who havestopped looking for work because they don’t believe they can find jobs.It also includes part-time workers who want to be working full time.  Nice.
• The anatomy of a natural gas spike.  Interesting.
• Why Wal-mart is surging.

iPhone Appgate!

iPhone Appgate!

Many users place a lot of trust in the App Store review system, but that appears to have changed in at least one case. In what seems to be the first reported instance of a developer relying on a bit more than a quality application to rack up good reviews, someone behind the SantaLive application has been spotted shelling out to get good "reviewers."

Doesn't anybody play by the rules anymore? Ah, they're not rules, they're "guidelines."  Seems a little like not playing by the rules to stack the deck for your app.

So far, I've downloaded about 20 apps.  I haven't reviewed any at the $AAPL app store, but maybe I will.   I listed some of my favorites here.  Some I've even paid for now.  Yeesh.