Home Shopping Latino Inc., doing business as Viva Telecompras, is an all Spanish language TV channel and online shopping website. The company will broadcast from Miami, Florida and expand its market via airtime and website broadcasts. The network will sell products provided by third-party wholesalers such as beauty care, vitamins, and in particular gemstones and jewelry.

Initially, the company is most interested in marketing high-quality, high-margin gemstones from the nation of Madagascar and has already developed a relationship to do so with MadAmerican Exports. Viva Telecompras will later subtract with jewelry manufacturers in Florida to make jewelry using these fine gemstones.

Home Shopping Latino is attempting to fill a very profitable niche in the home shopping industry with its Hispanic shopping channel. The Hispanic population is the fastest growing demographic – 9.3 million households with a population of over 35 million

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by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /br /Basically this post accompanies the Swedish monetary policy and devaluation post I have just put up. But first some theoretical structure from Claus Vistesen.br /br /a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SlMSCXRnOaI/AAAAAAAAOhs/0ENVvdtHpMA/s1600-h/claus+model.png"img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 190px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5355644213690579362" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SlMSCXRnOaI/AAAAAAAAOhs/0ENVvdtHpMA/s400/claus+model.png" //abr /br /As we can see above, the idea is that as median population age rises the current account dynamics of a country change. The last ageing phase of the diagram is purely speculative at this point. Basically we simply do not know what happens after a society starts to dis-save at an advanced median age. We have, as yet, no experience with this phenomenon.br /br /Now, as is well known, Sweden's median population age has been rising steadily, and reached 41.3 in 2009 according to the latest estimates from the US Census Bureau. This makes it a little ...

This morning the U.S. Census Bureau announced that May retail sales increased 0.5% from April. The rise in gasoline prices played a big role in May's sales increase. Driving the increase were gas stations, auto/auto parts, food/beverage, and clothing.Still, not all areas of retail reported sales increases. Department stores, electronics, furniture, and sporting goods all experienced sales declines in May. And compared to May 2008, this retail sales report doesn't look very good. May retail sales fell 10.8% compared to May 2008. Though the best performers from April to May were gasoline stations and autos, gasoline stations sales were down 33.8% year-over-year, and auto/auto parts sales were down 19.6%. The best year-over -year performers were health/personal care +5.0%, restaurants +1.2%, and food/beverage +0.6%.The full report can be read here.The market's initial reaction to this report is positive because this is ...

The US census bureau announced April construction spending data on June 1. Overall, April construction spending rose to a seasonally adjusted rate of $968.7 billion, up 0.8% of from March.While the increase was surprising, the April number was still 10.7% lower than the April 2008 estimates. YTD through April, total construction spending was down 11.3% from the same period in 2008.Private construction spending was $657 billion in April, 1.4% higher than March and 16.1% lower than April 2008. Residential construction spending was 0.8% higher than March and 34% lower than April 2008. Non-residential private construction was 0.8% above March numbers and 2.5% higher than the year earlier quarter, with the largest y/y increase coming in Manufacturing, 70%, and Power, 26%. Public construction spending was 0.6% lower than March and 3.3% higher than April 2008. The largest y/y increases in public spending was in Office, 20%, ...

Highlights include JC Penney Co., Inc. (JCP), Macy's, Inc. (M), Cost Plus, Inc. (CPWM), Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT) and Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST).This morning the U.S. Census Bureau announced that April retail sales declined 0.4% vs. expectations of 0.0%; retail sales (ex-auto) declined 0.5% vs. expectations of +0.2%. March retail sales were revised lower.Department stores, electronics, food/beverages, furniture, and online all experienced sales declines in April. Restaurants, sporting goods, health/personal care, and building materials all saw gains in April. On a year-over-year basis, retail sales fell 11.4% in April. The market was clearly disappointed by this news.This was the second straight monthly drop in retail sales, and the eighth decline in the last ten months. Recall that retail sales increased in January and February, and the equity market gravitated to the idea that consumer spending bottomed out in the ...

Highlights include Macy's Inc. (M), J.C. Penney Co., Inc. (JCP), Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT) and Family Dollar Stores, Inc. (FDO). The bounce in Retail sales we saw in January is starting to look more and more like just that -- a bounce, not a fundamental return of consumer spending. Since the consumer is responsible for over 70% of the economy, clearly this is significant. Here is the key section of the report: "The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for April, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $337.7 billion, a decrease of 0.4 percent (±0.5%) from the previous month and 10.1 percent (±0.7%) below April 2008. "Total sales for the February through April 2009 period were down 9.2 percent (±0.5%) from the same period a

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Employers cut 539,000 jobs in April, the lowest total in six months, but the Labor Department said the unemployment rate still soared to 8.9%, from 8.5% in March. While some analysts viewed the latest report as a sign of a nascent economic recovery, the unemployment numbers are almost certain to head higher before the recession is declared over.

Last week’s report could have been worse if the numbers hadn’t been held in check by a burst of federal government hiring of temporary workers to prepare for the 2010 Census.

The report was also skewed by the way the government categorizes the unemployed.  As Money Morning previously reported, if laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have settled for part-time work are included, the numbers skyrocket.

In fact, if the latest unemployment report had included those workers, the rate would have soared

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The US Census Bureau announced today that construction spending rose to a seasonally adjusted rate of $969.7 billion, up 0.3% of from February.While the increase was surprising, the March number was still 11.1% lower than March 2008. Private construction spending was $661 million in March, 0.1%  below February and 16.3% lower than March 2008.Residential construction spending was 4.2% lower than February and 33% lower than March 2008. Non-residential private construction was 2.7% above February numbers and 1.2% higher than the year earlier quarter, with the largest y/y increase coming in Power, 15.2%, and manufacturing, 64%.Public construction spending was 1.1% higher than February and 2.6% higher than March 2008. The largest y/y increases in public spending was in Manufacturing, 64%, and Power, 18.2%.While construction is still well down from the boom years, new numbers are encouraging and the declines were not as ...

I never thought an 18.6% decline could actually represent good news. But in an example of how desperate we’ve become for it - particularly concerning the U.S. housing market - many have jumped on the fact that it was the first time in 16 months that U.S. home prices didn’t drop by a new record. Wow… where’s that champagne? 

According to the latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, U.S. home prices fell an annualized 18.6% in February, compared with February 2008 - and a 0.4% improvement on the 19% drop in January.

Some have speculated that this news means we’ve hit the bottom and the market will now begin to trend upwards again.

Not so fast. Those folks must either be eternal optimists or very shortsighted. A 0.4% improvement is one of those “you have to start somewhere” pieces of good news, not a reason to celebrate.

The truth is, average home prices are still

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Dollar falls as US consumers become more positive…GDP to be reported this morning…European confidence increases…Mexican peso recovers…And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Good day… Hopefully this will reach everyone today. We have been having some computer problems causing some major delays in the delivery of your Pfennig. As Chuck always says, if you need your Pfennig, just go to www.dailypfennig.com where it is posted each morning as soon as I hit the send button. For those of you who feel the need, the website also has an archive, so you can all read what I had to say yesterday. But enough about our email problems, you all want to know what is happening in the markets.

The dollar began the day trading in a fairly tight range, but a fairly large jump in US consumer confidence sent the US$ tumbling. Yes, the old ‘opposite’ trading pattern has begun again. When we have good

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