For Investors Only: July 21. 2014; HAL Hits "Lifetime" High; And I Thought They Were Talking About Michelle

Best picture of the day (the year?). This was taken on Big Cormorant Lake in northwest Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes. I-98 will pass through this area; the six-lane interstate will begin in Minneapolis, will proceed in a northwesterly direction up towards Grand Forks where it will cross the Red River into North Dakota.

Photo taken on Big Cormorant Lake, Minnesota; sent to me by a reader.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything you read here or think you may have read here.

Reporting today:

• a lot of banks (none of which I care about)
• Halliburton (I don't invest in but it's a bellwether stock for what I do invest in)
• Netflix (after market close)

Halliburton hit a "lifetime" high today. HAL's profit climbed 20 percent. Announced stock buyback. From The AP:

The Houston-based company said earnings increased to $774 million, or 91 cents per share, from $644 million, or 69 cents per share, a year ago.

The average per-share estimate of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for a profit of 92 cents.

Netflix: profits double; blow past estimates; up almost $8 during the day; up another $3 in after-hours trading. Trading near a 52-week high. Back on March 21, 2013, I talked about Netflix and "the next big thing."

Trading at new 52-week highs today: BK, HAL (again).

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Actually I Thought They Were Talking About Michelle

A reader sent me this note. He did not sent the source; if I get it, I will link it. 

In a news conference Deanna Favre announced she wishes to be the starting quarterback for the Green Bay Packers (for newbies: an NFL football team) next season.  

Deanna asserts that she is qualified to be the starting QB because she spent 16 years married to Brett while he played QB for the Packers. 

During this period of time, she became familiar with the definition of a corner blitz, the nickel package, and man-to-man coverage, and is now completely comfortable with all the other terminology involving the Packers offense.  

A survey of Packers fans shows that 50% of those polled supported the move. 

Does this sounds idiotic and unbelievable or familiar to you? 

Hillary Clinton makes the same claims as to why she is qualified to be the next president of the United States (for newbies: the country with the second largest economy and occasionally the most powerful nation on earth) and 50% of Democrats polled agree. 

Hillary has never run a city, county, or state during her "career" of being Bill Clinton's wife. She has written some books and given some very expensive speeches.

When told Hillary Clinton has experience because she has 8 years in the white house, my immediate thought was "So has the pastry chef." 

When it comes to running the state department, her biggest achievements were         getting a US Ambassador and three other Americans killed by pretending terrorism had been defeated, and pushing a fictional  “reset” button with Russia.  

On the other hand, she does have more experience than Obama had.

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Common Core Mathematics

Back in April, Reuters was reporting:

Iran can produce fissile material for an atomic weapon in two months, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday told a Senate hearing in which he faced tough questions from lawmakers about negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program.

"I think it's public knowledge today that we're operating with a time period for a so-called breakout of about two months. That's been in the public domain," Kerry testified at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

That was in April. Now that talks have stalled, the Obama administration has give the Iranians "one last chance" (but not a red line) -- the Obamas have extended the July, 2014, deadline four months, out into November, 2014. (Previously reported at the blog.)

So, if I've done the math correctly, April + two months gets us to June, 2014. So, by November, the Iranians will have had almost half a year to inventory, store, and weaponize their personal supply of fissile material. I thought that was what the talks were all about in the first place.

I suppose this is where we could explain to students who are taking "English as a second langauge (ESL)" what the idiom "the horses are already out of the barn" means.

I can't make this stuff up. At least on this issue, SecState Kerry is not flip-flopping, simple extending meaningless talks. I do believe his goal is to accumulate more frequent flyer miles than his predecessor.