The WSJ has a story in its Washington Wire column that says Senator Kerry Promises An Agressive Tech Agenda. The basis of the story is a talk Senator Kerry was giving to the cable execs assembled in DC for their annual industry gathering. The story goes on to talk about the $7.2bn that the government is going to spend as part of the stimulus bill to "deliver broadband to rural consumers who can't get it and urban americans who can't afford it."

I don't think spending $7.2bn to build out wired broadband to rural and urban communities is an "aggressive tech agenda". I think it's nuts. There's a better way that was alluded to at the end of the WSJ piece:

By Matthew Hougan

What's the best U.S. total market ETF?

If you're looking at January performance, the answer is clear: the ELEMENTS Benjamin Graham Total Market ETN (BVT).

Our Smartphone road map includes a variety of devices, many based on the Android operating system.

Verizon (VZ), which is supposedly not even focusing on its wireless business as much as it is on TV and FiOS, noted how profitable Smart phones are and will be. From Verizon Communications Inc. Q408 conference call:

For better or for worse, Clearwire says it is a stand-alone company. Which means it won’t necessarily fail if their partners fail, but it may not necessarily expect any future help from them either:

Growth in the wireless sector has telecommunications  ETFs ringing up good numbers today.

AT&T (T) announced today that its quarterly profit had gone up even more than expected, reports Ritsuko Ando for Reuters. The growth among its wireless subscribers compensated for the loss in traditional landlines. Analysts said they were still worried about that, as well as growth in the number of high-speed internet subscribers in the second quarter, which was weaker than expected.

Health Care

When we last profiled PowerShares FTSE RAFI Telecommunications and Technology (PRFQ), back in late June, the fund had jumped from 36 to 18 on the Sector Momentum Table in the previous seven weeks and appeared poised to make a leap to the top of the list. PRFQ did inch upward a few spots, but for the most part it has shuffled between numbers 13 and 16 since early July. So while 2007 has been a good year for the telecom and technology sectors, it hasn’t been good enough to send PRFQ past many of the energy and materials funds that have dominated the top of the table.

If PRFQ is going to move north of last week’s position at number 13, it will need the giant firms in which it invests the bulk of its assets to finish the fourth quarter with a bang. Several of PRFQ’s top holdings seem positioned to do just that, but with the broader market enduring a period of increased instability, it’s not clear how these two highly volatile sectors will respond.

While the U.S. Federal Reserve continued its easing campaign last week, its statement that “strains have eased somewhat” closes the door a little on further interest rate cuts, according to UBS strategist George Vasic. This is important for investors because the transition from cutting to holding rates steady means it is “time to get less defensive and more cyclical,” he told clients in a note.

Looking back to the summer of 1998’s deflation shock (the market peaked in July) demonstrates that sectors like gold, staples and utilities led the market from its peak until the last Fed cut in November, Mr. Vasic said. But when the Fed went on hold, consumer discretionary, technology and telecom took over.

Nick Perry (Schaeffer's Investment Research) submits: Last week, we saw widespread weakness with housing the hardest-hit area, for the second week in a row. This week, we find a slight bounce back:

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Global Telecom ETFs
iShares S&P Global Telecommunications Sector Index Fund (IXP)

Global Retail and Consumer Goods & Services ETFs
iShares S&P Global Consumer Discretionary Sector Index Fund (RXI)

First Trust AlphaDEX Sector ETFs
First Trust Consumer Discretionary AlphaDEX Fund (FXD)
First Trust Consumer Staples AlphaDEX Fund (FXG)
First Trust Energy AlphaDEX Fund (FXN)
First Trust Financials AlphaDEX Fund (FXO)
First Trust Health Care AlphaDEX Fund (FXH)
First Trust Industrials/Producer Durables AlphaDEX Fund (FXR)
First Trust Materials AlphaDEX Fund (FXZ)
First Trust Technology AlphaDEX Fund (FXL)
First Trust Utilities AlphaDEX Fund (FXU)

I’m wondering if all of these are actually “real punters” paying for music on their handsets. So, for example, can Orange’s statistical reporting discriminate between “proper” use versus demos given in shops? Maybe there’s a separate APN for retailers’ SIMs, or maybe not. Or maybe there’s just internal billing reconciliation between the various divisions of the operator and its channel partners. Orange has 280 of its own shops in the UK, plus countless other retailers stock its wares, so it doesn't take an awful lot of demos-per-salesperson-per-day to rack up an appreciable fraction of 3000.

Research In Motion announced third quarter earnings excluding options costs of $0.95 per share, beating the analyst consensus of $0.92. Revenue rose 49% to $835 million, beating the consensus of $808 million. Guidance for Q4 was for EPS of $0.92-0.99 and revenue of $900 million, ahead of the current consensus of $0.95 and $848 million respectively. The stock rose 5.8% in late trading after the announcement. RIM added 875,000 new subscriber accounts during the quarter, driving its subscriber base to about 7 million. RIM attributed the strength in its results to the introduction in September of a multimedia phone with a music player and camera aimed at consumers, the BlackBerry Pearl, which was adopted by Cingular, Rogers, T-Mobile and over 20 European carriers. On its conference call, RIM said it was "targeting new product introductions late in Q4". But competition for mobile email devices is intensifying: Samsung recently introduced the BlackJack in November and Nokia the E61 in April. Motorola acquired mobile email software developer Good Technology in November, Nokia acquired Intellisync in February, and Hewlett-Packard announced Wednesday that it will acquire mobile device software vendor Bitfone Corp. Nokia, Motorola and Samsung report earnings next month.

August durable goods new orders dropped a disappointing 0.5%. There was nothing in the breakdown of the data to provide contrary cheer. Every key category was soft.

So, in an attempt to find the silver lining and push the market over the critical hump so we can enjoy the champagne we have had on ice since January 2000, here are the durable goods categories that showed better growth in both shipments and new orders in August (all data sourced from the US Department of Commerce, on a non-seasonally adjusted year/year basis.)