Stocks end higher for sixth straight week, tech leads

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Nasdaq composite stock index closed at a 12-year high and the S&P 500 index at a five-year high, boosted by gains in technology shares and stronger overseas trade figures.

The S&P 500 also posted a sixth straight week of gains for the first time since August.

The technology sector led the day's gains, with the S&P 500 technology index <.splrct> up 1.0 percent. Gains in professional network platform LinkedIn Corp and AOL Inc after they reported quarterly results helped the sector.

Shares of LinkedIn jumped 21.3 percent to $150.48 after the social networking site announced strong quarterly profits and gave a bullish forecast for the year.

AOL Inc shares rose 7.4 percent to $33.72 after the online company reported higher quarterly profit, boosted by a 13 percent rise in advertising sales.

Data showed Chinese exports grew more than expected, a positive sign for the global economy. The U.S. trade deficit narrowed in December, suggesting the U.S. economy likely grew in the fourth quarter instead of contracting slightly as originally reported by the U.S. government.

"That may have sent a ray of optimism," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co in Lake Oswego, Oregon.

Trading volume on Friday was below average for the week as a blizzard swept into the northeastern United States.

The U.S. stock market has posted strong gains since the start of the year, with the S&P 500 up 6.4 percent since December 31. The advance has slowed in recent days, with fourth-quarter earnings winding down and few incentives to continue the rally on the horizon.

"I think we're in the middle of a trading range and I'd put plus or minus 5.0 percent around it. Fundamental factors are best described as neutral," Dickson said.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> ended up 48.92 points, or 0.35 percent, at 13,992.97. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 8.54 points, or 0.57 percent, at 1,517.93. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 28.74 points, or 0.91 percent, at 3,193.87, its highest closing level since November 2000.

For the week, the Dow was down 0.1 percent, the S&P 500 was up 0.3 percent and the Nasdaq up 0.5 percent.

Shares of Dell closed at $13.63, up 0.7 percent, after briefly trading above a buyout offering price of $13.65 during the session.

Dell's largest independent shareholder, Southeastern Asset Management, said it plans to oppose the buyout of the personal computer maker, setting up a battle for founder Michael Dell.

Signs of economic strength overseas buoyed sentiment on Wall Street. Chinese exports grew more than expected in January, while imports climbed 28.8 percent, highlighting robust domestic demand. German data showed a 2012 surplus that was the nation's second highest in more than 60 years, an indication of the underlying strength of Europe's biggest economy.

Separately, U.S. economic data showed the trade deficit shrank in December to $38.5 billion, its narrowest in nearly three years, indicating the economy did much better in the fourth quarter than initially estimated.

Earnings have mostly come in stronger than expected since the start of the reporting period. Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies now are estimated up 5.2 percent versus a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data. That contrasts with a 1.9 percent growth forecast at the start of the earnings season.

Molina Healthcare Inc surged 10.4 percent to $31.88 as the biggest boost to the index after posting fourth-quarter earnings.

The CBOE Volatility index <.vix>, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, was down 3.6 percent at 13.02. The gauge, a key measure of market expectations of short-term volatility, generally moves inversely to the S&P 500.

"I'm watching the 14 level closely" on the CBOE Volatility index, said Bryan Sapp, senior trading analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "The break below it at the beginning of the year signaled the sharp rally in January, and a rally back above it could be a sign to exercise some caution."

Volume was roughly 5.6 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.

Advancers outpaced decliners on the NYSE by nearly 2 to 1 and on the Nasdaq by almost 5 to 3.

(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Nick Zieminski, Kenneth Barry and Andrew Hay)

Read More..

Russia Detains 271 in St. Petersburg Security Raid

MOSCOW — Russian police and security officials in St. Petersburg detained 271 people, mostly migrants from Central Asia and the North Caucasus region, during a raid on Friday on Muslim prayer rooms at a central market. They said the raid was carried out to check residency permits and to eliminate networks of religious extremists planning terrorist attacks.

A statement published Friday night by the regional investigative committee said the authorities were verifying the documents of the detainees, who include citizens of Azerbaijan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as well as an Egyptian and an Afghan.

The federal migration service began deportation procedures on Saturday for 10 of the detainees, and about 30 were found to be in violation of Russian migration laws, an official told the news agency RIA Novosti.

The police said one man from southern Russia, Murat Sarbashev, was suspected of distributing extremist literature and video clips showing terrorist acts in 2010 and 2011.

Video broadcast on Russian television showed heavily armed riot police officers pulling men out of the market and pushing them into waiting buses.

Security officials in St. Petersburg say an extremist group is operating in the city and has been planning terrorist attacks. The raid was intended to uncover “extremist literature, weapons, objects and documents relevant to criminal cases, and people who have carried out such crimes,” the statement said. The authorities have opened a case and are searching for evidence pointing to the incitement of terrorism and hatred; a conviction on that charge carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.

Read More..

Dell’s largest investor opposes buyout as too low

(Reuters) – Dell Inc’s largest independent shareholder Southeastern Asset Management said it plans to oppose the buyout of the personal computer maker, setting up a battle for founder Michael Dell who is leading the effort to operate the company away from public scrutiny.

Southeastern sent a letter to Dell’s board expressing its “extreme disappointment” in the offer price of $ 13.65 a share, it said in a regulatory filing.

It said it “currently intends to avail itself of all options at its disposal to oppose proposed transaction.”

Reuters had reported earlier that the Southeastern was unhappy with the offer.

The Memphis, Tennessee-based fund, which owns a 8.5 percent stake in Dell, said it values the entire company at about $ 24.00 per share.

The fund said it believes Dell board had several alternatives that would have produced far better outcome for public shareholders, including breaking up the company and selling the unit separately.

“Selling multiple business units to strategic buyers could easily exceed $ 13.65 per share,” it said.

A representative of Silver Lake declined to comment.

With Southeastern’s objections, shareholders representing 11 percent of the Dell shares not held by Michael Dell have now said they will vote against the deal.

Under the buyout’s terms, a majority of shares not held by Michael Dell must be voted in favor of the deal for it to proceed.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Dell’s largest investor opposes buyout as too low
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/dells-largest-investor-opposes-buyout-as-too-low/
Link To Post : Dell’s largest investor opposes buyout as too low
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Olympian Amanda Beard Expecting Second Child

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

02/08/2013 at 04:48 PM ET

Sacha Brown

Amanda Beard is set to welcome a new addition to the pool.

The seven-time Olympic medalist and her husband, photographer Sacha Brown, are expecting their second child in July, Beard confirms to PEOPLE exclusively.

“We are so excited to add to our family! During my first pregnancy, I was sick the whole time and felt awful,” the swimmer, 31, tells PEOPLE.

“So far this pregnancy has been a lot easier. I’ve only been sick a couple of times and I have way more energy.”

Also delighted by the news is soon-to-be big brother Blaise Ray, 3.

“He’s so excited. He keeps telling me how he is going to hug and kiss the baby and help me take care of [him or her],” says Beard.

She jokingly adds, “We will see if that actually happens!”

Beard won two gold, four silver and one bronze medal during her career and is a four-time Olympian. Currently sponsored by Aqua Sphere, she is also the author of the memoir In the Water They Can’t See You Cry.

She and Brown were married in May 2009 on Wakatobi, an archipelago in the Banda Sea off southeastern Indonesia.

– Sarah Michaud

Read More..

Health officials: Worst of flu season may be over

NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.

The number of states reporting intense or widespread flu dropped again last week, U.S. health officials said Friday.

The season started earlier than normal, spiking first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths have been dropping for two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said in an email.

It's been nine years since a conventional flu season started like this one. That was the winter of 2003-04 — one of the deadliest in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths. Like this year, that season had the same dominant flu strain, one that tends to make people sicker.

But back then, the flu vaccine didn't protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated each year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed this year's version is about 60 percent effective.

So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.

The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 such deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week.

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.

Flu vaccinations are recommended for everyone 6 months or older.

Read More..

Optimism about economy sends stocks to multiyear highs

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Nasdaq composite index closed at a 12-year high and the S&P 500 index at a five-year high as stronger U.S. and international trade data lifted stocks on optimism about the economy.

The S&P 500 also posted a sixth straight week of gains for the first time since August.

Data showed Chinese exports grew more than expected, while another report showed the U.S. trade deficit had narrowed in December, indicating the U.S. economy strengthened in the fourth quarter.

"That may have sent a ray of optimism," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co in Lake Oswego, Oregon.

Trading volume on Friday was below average for the week as a blizzard swept into the northeastern United States.

The technology sector led the day's gains, with the S&P 500 technology index <.splrct> up 1 percent. Gains in LinkedIn Corp and AOL Inc after they reported quarterly results helped the sector.

The market has posted strong gains since the start of the year, with the S&P 500 up 6.4 percent since December 31. But the advance has dragged in recent days, with fourth-quarter earnings winding down and few incentives to continue the rally on the horizon.

"I think we're in the middle of a trading range and I'd put plus or minus 5 percent around it. Fundamental factors are best described as neutral," Dickson said.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 48.92 points, or 0.35 percent, at 13,992.97. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 8.54 points, or 0.57 percent, at 1,517.93. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 28.74 points, or 0.91 percent, at 3,193.87, its highest closing level since November 2000.

Shares of LinkedIn jumped 21.3 percent to $150.48 after it announced quarterly profits and gave a bullish forecast for the year.

AOL Inc shares rose 7.4 percent to $33.72 after the online company reported higher quarterly profit, boosted by a 13 percent rise in advertising sales.

The CBOE Volatility index <.vix>, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, was down 3.6 percent at 13.02. The gauge, a key measure of market expectations of short-term volatility, generally moves inversely to the S&P 500.

"I'm watching the 14 level closely" on the CBOE Volatility index, said Bryan Sapp, senior trading analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "The break below it at the beginning of the year signaled the sharp rally in January, and a rally back above it could be a sign to exercise some caution."

Signs of economic strength overseas buoyed sentiment on Wall Street. Chinese exports grew more than expected in January, while imports climbed 28.8 percent, highlighting robust domestic demand. German data showed a 2012 surplus that was the nation's second highest in more than 60 years, an indication of the underlying strength of Europe's biggest economy.

Separately, U.S. economic data showed the trade deficit shrank in December to $38.5 billion, its narrowest in nearly three years, indicating the economy did much better in the fourth quarter than initially estimated.

Earnings have mostly come in stronger than expected since the start of the reporting period. Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies now are estimated up 5.2 percent versus a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data. That contrasts with a 1.9 percent growth forecast at the start of the earnings season.

Molina Healthcare Inc surged 10.4 percent to $31.88 as the biggest boost to the index after posting fourth-quarter earnings.

(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Nick Zieminski and Kenneth Barry)

Read More..

European Union Leaders Agree to Slimmer Budget

BRUSSELS — As European Union leaders began their 14th hour of budget negotiations after a sleepless night, Valdis Dombrovskis, the prime minister of Latvia, took the floor early Friday to address what, for his Baltic nation of around just two million people, is a vital question: Why should a Latvian cow deserve less money than a French, Dutch and even Romanian one?

In a system that requires unanimous approval of budget decisions, what Latvia wants for its dairy farmers — or Estonia for its railways, Hungary for its poorer regions and Spain for its fishermen — is no small matter. It is this cacophony of local concerns that explains why, despite the outsize role in decision-making of Germany, the European Union has such trouble reaching an agreement on something as basic as a budget.

And if simply agreeing to a basic budget — the first decrease in its history — is so daunting to member countries, it also raised serious questions about the limits of political and economic integration that have long been the master plan for champions of European unity.

After a failed attempt to fix spending targets at the summit meeting in November and a 24-hour marathon of talks this week, European leaders finally agreed late Friday to a common budget for the next seven years. Slightly smaller than its predecessor, the new budget plan reflects the climate of austerity across a continent still struggling to emerge from a crippling debt crisis.

The colossal effort that was required to agree to a sum amounting to about €960 billion, or $1.28 trillion, or a mere 1 percent of the bloc’s gross domestic product, again exposed the stubborn attachment to national priorities that have made reaching agreements on how to save the euro so painful in recent years.

“We need to agree and to agree we need to take into account all countries,” said Mr. Dombrovskis in an interview. The Latvian leader, who rushed to his hotel for a shave, shower and change of shirt in the middle of the night, described the ordeal as “not a pleasant experience,” but said “it only happens every seven years so we can tolerate it.”

But toleration is not the same thing as cooperation.

“What we’re seeing is that European integration is very important to European leaders as long as it doesn’t imply that someone has to be paying for someone else,” said Daniel Gros, director for the Center for European Policy Studies, a research organization in Brussels.

“Sharing a European budget is not going to be the essence of the E.U., but crafting the rule books for open borders and stable banking systems will be,” said Mr. Gros.

For other observers, the spectacle of European leaders haggling through the night over amounts of money representing rounding errors in their national accounts once again demonstrated their reluctance to make policies together that erode their nations’ sovereignty.

“The budget negotiations are most visible sign of member states winning and losing from the European Union,” said Hugo Brady, a senior research fellow at the Center for European Reform, a research organization. “The result is a totally parochial budget that is poorly adapted to rapidly changing times,” he said.

The deal faces yet another hurdle before it becomes law at the European Parliament, which has the power to veto the budget.

Some of the most influential figures in Parliament have already signaled that they are prepared to reject a budget that foresees spending less on Europe in the years ahead.

Martin Schulz, the president of the Parliament, said this week he would not approve a budget that ended up widening the overall gap between the cash paid up-front by governments and the somewhat higher amounts, known as commitments, which make up the overall budget.

Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands were among the Northern European nations that fought hard to squeeze agricultural subsidies and increase spending on research and development to boost the bloc’s global competitiveness.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 8, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled, on one reference, the last name of the Latvian prime minister. It is Dombrovskis, not Domobrovskis.

Read More..

TSX ends lower as ECB comments weigh; BlackBerry up

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada‘s main stock index closed slightly lower on Thursday as a wave of negative sentiment after the European Central Bank warned about weak euro zone economies pulled down energy and financial shares, offsetting a rise in BlackBerry .

The Toronto Stock Exchange‘s S&P/TSX composite index <.gsptse> unofficially ended down 5.67 points, or 0.04 percent, at 12,755.92. Four of the 10 main sectors on the index were in the red.</.gsptse>

(Reporting by John Tilak)

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: TSX ends lower as ECB comments weigh; BlackBerry up
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/tsx-ends-lower-as-ecb-comments-weigh-blackberry-up/
Link To Post : TSX ends lower as ECB comments weigh; BlackBerry up
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Prison Inmates Save Three Boys from Drowning

By Janine Rayford

02/07/2013 at 04:45 PM EST

From left: Larry Bohn, Nelson Pettis and Jon Fowler

KPTV

When three inmates were assigned to clean up a park near their Yacolt, Wash. minimum security corrections facility, they had no idea how important that day's community service would be.

While finishing up their work on Jan. 30, Nelson Pettis, 37, Larry Bohn, 29, and Jon Fowler, 29, heard children's screams coming from the nearby creek. Rushing to the water's edge, they saw three young boys struggling to keep their heads above water.

The children's small canoe had capsized, dumping the boys into the cold, 25-mph current, which was rushing towards the Washington River.

"It was raging pretty fast," Pettis told the local KPTV news station. "They were really scared."

He and Bohn didn't think twice, leaping into the water to grab the boys – later identified as brothers ages 8, 10 and 16 – carrying them to a small island, where they awaited emergency rescue. "They kept telling us, 'Thank you, thank you,' " Bohn told reporters.

Fowler, who remained on land and helped emergency crews blow up an inflatable raft and bring the group back to shore, told reporters that while some may find their actions surprising, "We did what any good person would do."

The men took off their shirts to wrap up the shivering boys, all of whom were taken to the hospital for mild hypothermia.

Prison authorities say the men involved are all serving time for non-violent crimes.

"Just because we're incarcerated doesn't mean we're bad people," Fowler told reporters. "We made some bad choices in our lives, but we're still just like everybody else."

Read More..

Southern diet, fried foods, may raise stroke risk

Deep-fried foods may be causing trouble in the Deep South. People whose diets are heavy on them and sugary drinks like sweet tea and soda were more likely to suffer a stroke, a new study finds.

It's the first big look at diet and strokes, and researchers say it might help explain why blacks in the Southeast — the nation's "stroke belt" — suffer more of them.

Blacks were five times more likely than whites to have the Southern dietary pattern linked with the highest stroke risk. And blacks and whites who live in the South were more likely to eat this way than people in other parts of the country were. Diet might explain as much as two-thirds of the excess stroke risk seen in blacks versus whites, researchers concluded.

"We're talking about fried foods, french fries, hamburgers, processed meats, hot dogs," bacon, ham, liver, gizzards and sugary drinks, said the study's leader, Suzanne Judd of the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

People who ate about six meals a week featuring these sorts of foods had a 41 percent higher stroke risk than people who ate that way about once a month, researchers found.

In contrast, people whose diets were high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish had a 29 percent lower stroke risk.

"It's a very big difference," Judd said. "The message for people in the middle is there's a graded risk" — the likelihood of suffering a stroke rises in proportion to each Southern meal in a week.

Results were reported Thursday at an American Stroke Association conference in Honolulu.

The federally funded study was launched in 2002 to explore regional variations in stroke risks and reasons for them. More than 20,000 people 45 or older — half of them black — from all 48 mainland states filled out food surveys and were sorted into one of five diet styles:

—Southern: Fried foods, processed meats (lunchmeat, jerky), red meat, eggs, sweet drinks and whole milk.

—Convenience: Mexican and Chinese food, pizza, pasta.

—Plant-based: Fruits, vegetables, juice, cereal, fish, poultry, yogurt, nuts and whole-grain bread.

—Sweets: Added fats, breads, chocolate, desserts, sweet breakfast foods.

—Alcohol: Beer, wine, liquor, green leafy vegetables, salad dressings, nuts and seeds, coffee.

"They're not mutually exclusive" — for example, hamburgers fall into both convenience and Southern diets, Judd said. Each person got a score for each diet, depending on how many meals leaned that way.

Over more than five years of follow-up, nearly 500 strokes occurred. Researchers saw clear patterns with the Southern and plant-based diets; the other three didn't seem to affect stroke risk.

There were 138 strokes among the 4,977 who ate the most Southern food, compared to 109 strokes among the 5,156 people eating the least of it.

There were 122 strokes among the 5,076 who ate the most plant-based meals, compared to 135 strokes among the 5,056 people who seldom ate that way.

The trends held up after researchers took into account other factors such as age, income, smoking, education, exercise and total calories consumed.

Fried foods tend to be eaten with lots of salt, which raises blood pressure — a known stroke risk factor, Judd said. And sweet drinks can contribute to diabetes, the disease that celebrity chef Paula Deen — the queen of Southern cuisine — revealed she had a year ago.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, drugmaker Amgen Inc. and General Mills Inc. funded the study.

"This study does strongly suggest that food does have an influence and people should be trying to avoid these kinds of fatty foods and high sugar content," said an independent expert, Dr. Brian Silver, a Brown University neurologist and stroke center director at Rhode Island Hospital.

"I don't mean to sound like an ogre. I know when I'm in New Orleans I certainly enjoy the food there. But you don't have to make a regular habit of eating all this stuff."

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Read More..