It always amazes me how fast time goes, and I am reminded of it even more every time a new arrives. I can't believe it is going to be 2012. Hopefully all of you had a very successful 2011 with binary options, and I wish everyone huge success in 2012. I will be back on Monday with the usual stuff, but until then I hope you can celebrate the new year with friends and family, and just enjoy yourselves!

you may have heard by now that Sears is planning to close many of it's stores over the next year or so. This news came after a very lackluster showing for the holidays at both of these retailers. It is obviously bad news for the value of the stocks, so if you have those available at your binary options broker, you might want to consider taking some action on it.

Well yesterday the DOW was down a little over 1 percent. Today we will be looking at Crude Oil prices. The supply of crude in the U.S. was up sharply last week, so prices on oil are down for now, and likely will continue to drop some. The larger supply indicates a weaker demand, and that always spells lower crude prices. Of course us binary options traders know that crude is an extremely volatile commodity, and almost any kind of significant news could change the current trend in a heartbeat.

The day after Christmas is traditionally another big day for retailers. It is not as big as Black Friday, but that is mainly because of the way that people shop. Lots of the shopping is with gift cards, and also exchanges of gifts that people received. There are those that go out looking for the deals that are being offered, which many times rival those pre-Christmas deals. It will be an interesting thing to see how big of a shopping day the 26th really was this year.

I would like to start by wishing everyone Happy Holidays. It was a good weekend to get together with family, and enjoy good food. 
Now, it will be back to work for many, including traders of binary options. There is some things that we can look at for today, and the week ahead, which is the last week of 2011! 
Sony and Samsung are two companies to talk about as Sony sold its ownership of an LCD venture to Samsung. Sony has not made a profit in years, and this is possibly a good move for them to start in a profitable direction, so it should be good news for their stock values. Samsung is now left with this LCD venture, and that may not be a great thing for them, so stocks may take a slight hit this week.

Many times here in the U.S. we are able to look to other world markets before ours opens to get an idea of what may be coming. Obviously it is to the advantage of a binary option trader to have an idea of how things affect other markets. Today, for instance, world stocks are up so far because there were some rather promising things about the U.S. economy yesterday. things like fewer people applying for unemployment. Also, in a somewhat surprising turn of events, it looks like Congress has agreed upon a deal to extend the payroll tax cut for at least two months. All good news for the markets. As it looks now, I would expect markets here to be up at least to start t

There is fears in the U.S. that a payroll tax cut that has been in effect will soon be ending. This will cause millions of Americans to begin seeing smaller paychecks. This would obviously have a negative effect on the economy as people would likely be looking for ways to cut back on spending money. The tax cut is due to expire at the end of the year, but as usual, the Senate and House cannot agree upon a plan to extend it. Now, most of these politicians are off of work until next year, so the likelihood of something getting done is very low. Binary options traders should be aware of this situation, and it should signal a downturn in the stock market if nothing is done.

There are some things to get ready for today. There will be some news regarding the housing market today, in terms of homes sold in November. That is always a good signal. There is also some stocks to watch as a few companies are contemplating some big moves. Namely, you have RIM (Research In Motion) being looked at by both Microsoft, and Amazon. RIM is the maker of the Blackberry device. A sale of this company to either of the ones above would be big news.

There is some very positive signs for the housing market out there today. There has been a rise in permits for future construction, and housing starts. This should boost the markets today because that is a positive sign for the economy. Look to see if it lasts as the day goes on, but for now I would look for a way to capitalize on this news with a good binary options trade. Always remember to act fast on these kinds of signals because as we all know, the market has a very short memory.

Sales on the internet are up significantly this holiday season. This combined with the rather large increase of black friday sales means that it has been a very successful Christmas shopping season for retailers. This should bode well for the economy as a whole, and obviously in the stock market as well. As long as there is either no news, or good news out of Europe, I would expect the markets to likely be up to start the day, and week.