Watch CNBC from Your ETrade Account

I logged on to my ETrade brokerage account today to check my bank balance since not only do I use ETrade as my taxable brokerage account, I also use the ETrade Bank for all of my fixed expenses such as the mortgage, car payments and credit cards. Each month I transfer the necessary amount to make those payments and simply verify that they get paid. I am currently in 100% cash in my brokerage account since I have some rather large expenses coming up soon and can't really be tied up in stocks at the present time. While I was on the site, I decided to check a few stock quotes just out of curiosity and noticed there was a new application that allowed me to watch CNBC live on my computer.

Well, I just had to try it out and so I clicked on the button and in a small little Firefox browser window opened up CNBC. It was streaming live over the internet and was the same thing that I might be watching off the satellite. So I watched "Squawk Box" for a few minutes and then had it running in the background so I could listen to it as I did some other work on the computer in my office. After coming back from an appointment, I listened to some "Power Lunch" while continuing to work. I am actually trying to get my tax information together since I had asked for an extension and the October 15th deadline is fast approaching.

Needless to say, I am hooked. If you have done any reading of my Hubs, you will notice that I am very interested in investing and try to keep abreast of much of the current business news. I don't have a ton of money to invest yet, but do have my retirement account in stocks and use options to hedge my positions. I also sell some covered calls to make additional monthly income for my retirement account.  I manage my own retirement accounts since I am self-employed and feel that there is no one else who will be paying as much attention to my retirement money as I will.

I tried to go to the site without logging on to see if anybody would have access to the wonderful application.  Unfortunately, it only appears when I am logged into my account so it appears that you have to be an ETrade customer to take advantage of this tool.  I like to watch Jim Cramer from time to time and especially like fast money although I am usually still commuting from work when this show is on.  But I think this is a wonderful tool that might be useful wherever I might have access to the internet.  Anyway, just thought I would let everybody know that it is possible to access CNBC live through an ETrade Brokerage account.