Thursday

W and I are now into the equivalent of a second week of vacationing in Vegas.  No offense to my sister who lives there full-time, but who vacations for two weeks in LV?  After two days and three nights, I'm looking for the cab to McCarran.

My pre-opening-bell business TV viewing habits have been forced to change in recent weeks.  CNBC moved Jim Cramer to a regular co-host position after the first of the year, and I can't stand the guy.  After the Squawk Box show ends at 0800 CST, I've been switching over to Bloomberg for In The Loop with Betty Liu.  Unfortunately, that show does nothing for me either.  They use a lot of hand-held camera segments, and I find that presentation a bit disconcerting.  And they've read the Political Correctness Journal a little too closely: being a minority seems to be a prerequisite for a spot in the cast.

Here's a heads up: tomorrow, April 13th, is Phil and Margaret's 76th anniversary.

Back to Squawk Box.  They had a recurring guest on this morning, James Chanos, a well-known hedge fund manager in NYC, who happens to be a professional "short" seller.  (Shorts are investors who sell securities in the expectation that the security will be falling in price.)  The shorts get criticized in down markets, and perhaps deservedly so, as accelerants in already flammable situations.  Anyway, his current picks include the company that owns Red Box (the DVD outfit), and company's in the PC hardware business.  He considers both of those models as dying concepts in the face of streaming and tablet technological advances.  Interesting.

He also says that the problem with natural gas company's is that they are capitalized expecting gas prices of $6 per cubic foot, and the market is at $2 per cubic foot.  That math doesn't work.

Need a big production day.  Those out-of-town returns need to hit UPS today.

Make yours a good one.

BCOT