Street Rises on Hopes For a Budget Deal

President Barack Obama was scheduled to meet with several congressional leaders, and while the White House said the meeting had been delayed, signs of negotiations were taken as a positive by the market.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who began talks on Saturday, appeared together on the Senate floor and expressed optimism a deal could be made final within days.

Stocks had dipped after weekend talks failed to reach a solution that would reopen the federal government and raise the $16.7 trillion federal borrowing limit by October 17. Failure to raise the debt ceiling could leave the world's biggest economy unable to pay its bills in the coming weeks.

"Bringing everyone together was enough to get us to come back after opening quite a bit lower, but we're still very much under the assumption that we're at an impasse," said Ralph Bassett, deputy head of North American equities at Aberdeen Asset Management in Philadelphia.

"We expect there will be an agreement in the next day or so, but there's a lot of fear."

In addition to the debt ceiling, the government shutdown, entering its third week, was seen as a drag on the economy by shaving a small percentage off the GDP with each passing day.

In a sign of the market's caution, the CBOE Volatility index .VIX, which typically trades inversely to the S&P 500, rose 1.8 percent. Trading volume was low, although that was partially related to the Columbus Day holiday, with banks and the U.S. bond market closed.

About 4.77 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, below the daily average so far this year of more than 6 billion shares.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI was up 64.15 points, or 0.42 percent, at 15,301.26. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX was up 6.94 points, or 0.41 percent, at 1,710.14. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC was up 23.40 points, or 0.62 percent, at 3,815.28.

The day's gains were broad, with eight of the S&P's 10 sectors higher. The two decliners were sectors considered defensive: telecom and utilities. About 55 percent of stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange closed higher while 59 percent of Nasdaq-listed shares closed up.

Investors are also looking ahead to corporate earnings this week, with results from Citigroup Inc (C.N), Coca-Cola Co (KO.N), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N), and Intel Corp (INTC.O) on tap. Market participants are looking to see what kind of impact the issues in Washington have had on results and forecasts.

With 6 percent of S&P 500 companies having reported, 55 percent have topped profit expectations, below the historical average.

"Earnings have been mixed at best, with revenue growth especially tepid," said Bassett, who helps oversee $312 billion in assets. "By and large, we're focused on companies where earnings growth isn't dependent on GDP being at a certain rate."

Shares of Netflix Inc (NFLX.O) rose 7.8 percent to $324.36, as the S&P's top gainer, after the Wall Street Journal reported that the company is in talks with several U.S. cable television companies, to make its streaming video service available through their set-top boxes.

On the downside, Expedia Inc (EXPE.O) plunged 6.2 percent to $48.51 after Deutsche Bank downgraded it to "hold" from "buy."

Appliance maker Whirlpool (WHR.N) fell 6.5 percent to $131.29. A note from Cleveland Research pointed to softening demand for appliances.

Spellbound Nails New March Releases

Today was a big release day for Spellbound Nails. For those of you who missed the St. Patrick's Day presales, The Drunken Leprechaun Duo is now fully released and available in full size and mini bottles as well as individual bottles - Lucky Charm and Magically Delicious.

Credit: 4Boys 1Mom Lacquer

Many thanks to Jennifer of 4Boys 1Mom Lacquer for her lovely swatches. Head over to her blog and see the equally amazing nail art she did with these polishes.

You can also visit Natalie of Over the Top Coat and Jolene of All Glazed Over for more wonderful swatches and St. Patrick's Day nail art.

You can now get the Spring 2014 Collection as it is up for presale until 03/08. It fully releases 03/20. (Full Size | Mini)

And, last but not least, today was the start of my new monthly charity polishes. $2 of every bottle sold will be donated at the end of the month to the charity that inspired the polish. This month the charity is the Wounded Warrior Project. Put Yer Camo On is a camouflage inspired glitter topper. Mini bottles are $6.50 and full size bottles are $10. What could be better than making a donation to a great charity and getting a bottle of polish in return??

Are you on polish overload yet? If you're not and you want to see more Spellbound Nails polishes you can head over to Fairly Charming and see the wonderful swatches Stef recently did of 5 of my glitter toppers!!

Until next time,
♥ Ashley

The MINI Countryman isn't as bad as everyone makes out

I GET the feeling this particular article is going to be an expensive one.

The trouble is, I’ve ended up spending three days in a car which everyone loves to hate. In order to dissuade me from being too nice about it, my friends have used Facebook to set up a £10-per-compliment fines system, payable next time I see them in the pub.

A tricky call when the car in question is the MINI Countryman.

It’s one of a trio of jacked-up, off-roader-esque diesel hatchbacks (or ‘crossovers’ in automotive marketing speak) I’ve had the privilege to try out lately, with my weekend in the most massive MINI of them all coming after stints in Honda’s latest CR-V and Volkswagen’s Tiguan. It’s probably worth tackling the rather bloated, retro elephant in the room first; the MINI is, to my mind at least, the ugliest of the three.

I didn’t like the styling when I roadtested it forThe Champion three years ago and it still doesn’t look great now – it’s not that it’s a ridiculously oversized retro pastiche of the original Mini, but that, compared to the Honda and VW it just seems a bit blobby and ill defined. Perhaps as a conscious result of how it looks, the boot is also noticeably smaller than most of its rivals too.

Sadly, I don’t get a tenner back for every time I’m critical of the Countryman, so a few callous comments about its styling aren’t going to help me. Annoyingly, there are quite a few things the Countryman has in its favour.

The interior, for instance, is far more imaginative than anything else in its class, and if you’ve spent a lifetime on the M6 being bored by the relentless sea of grey trim and unassuming buttons in most modern motors then you’ll love the MINI’s rocker switches, lashings of chrome and the silly, pizza dish-sized speedo.

It’s also quiet at speed, rides superbly, is more than roomy enough for you and four of your average-sized chums, and it comes with the same feeling of sturdiness you’d expect from a car masterminded by BMW.

What you might not be expecting – and I definitely wasn’t until I ventured off the motorway and onto the quiet country lanes criss-crossing Cheshire – is that the MINI Cooper D Countryman handles and steers so much better than any of its chief rivals. There is, I begrudgingly admit, a faint whiff of Nineties hot hatch about the way it chews up corners, and a confidence-inspiring finesse to the steering I genuinely wasn’t expecting.

Given twenty grand it’s not the crossover I’d go for – that’d still be the Skoda Yeti – but the Countryman is far better than my mates give it credit for.

Mates who, by my reckoning, I now owe roughly £80. Oops.