Wall Street Week Ahead: Bears hibernate as stocks near record highs

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks have been on a tear in January, moving major indexes within striking distance of all-time highs. The bearish case is a difficult one to make right now.

Earnings have exceeded expectations, the housing and labor markets have strengthened, lawmakers in Washington no longer seem to be the roadblock that they were for most of 2012, and money has returned to stock funds again.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> has gained 5.4 percent this year and closed above 1,500 - climbing to the spot where Wall Street strategists expected it to be by mid-year. The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> is 2.2 percent away from all-time highs reached in October 2007. The Dow ended Friday's session at 13,895.98, its highest close since October 31, 2007.

The S&P has risen for four straight weeks and eight consecutive sessions, the longest streak of days since 2004. On Friday, the benchmark S&P 500 ended at 1,502.96 - its first close above 1,500 in more than five years.

"Once we break above a resistance level at 1,510, we dramatically increase the probability that we break the highs of 2007," said Walter Zimmermann, technical analyst at United-ICAP, in Jersey City, New Jersey. "That may be the start of a rise that could take equities near 1,800 within the next few years."

The most recent Reuters poll of Wall Street strategists estimated the benchmark index would rise to 1,550 by year-end, a target that is 3.1 percent away from current levels. That would put the S&P 500 a stone's throw from the index's all-time intraday high of 1,576.09 reached on October 11, 2007.

The new year has brought a sharp increase in flows into U.S. equity mutual funds, and that has helped stocks rack up four straight weeks of gains, with strength in big- and small-caps alike.

That's not to say there aren't concerns. Economic growth has been steady, but not as strong as many had hoped. The household unemployment rate remains high at 7.8 percent. And more than 75 percent of the stocks in the S&P 500 are above their 26-week highs, suggesting the buying has come too far, too fast.

MUTUAL FUND INVESTORS COME BACK

All 10 S&P 500 industry sectors are higher in 2013, in part because of new money flowing into equity funds. Investors in U.S.-based funds committed $3.66 billion to stock mutual funds in the latest week, the third straight week of big gains for the funds, data from Thomson Reuters' Lipper service showed on Thursday.

Energy shares <.5sp10> lead the way with a gain of 6.6 percent, followed by industrials <.5sp20>, up 6.3 percent. Telecom <.5sp50>, a defensive play that underperforms in periods of growth, is the weakest sector - up 0.1 percent for the year.

More than 350 stocks hit new highs on Friday alone on the New York Stock Exchange. The Dow Jones Transportation Average <.djt> recently climbed to an all-time high, with stocks in this sector and other economic bellwethers posting strong gains almost daily.

"If you peel back the onion a little bit, you start to look at companies like Precision Castparts , Honeywell , 3M Co and Illinois Tool Works - these are big, broad-based industrial companies in the U.S. and they are all hitting new highs, and doing very well. That is the real story," said Mike Binger, portfolio manager at Gradient Investments, in Shoreview, Minnesota.

The gains have run across asset sizes as well. The S&P small-cap index <.spcy> has jumped 6.7 percent and the S&P mid-cap index <.mid> has shot up 7.5 percent so far this year.

Exchange-traded funds have seen year-to-date inflows of $15.6 billion, with fairly even flows across the small-, mid- and large-cap categories, according to Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at the ConvergEx Group, in New York.

"Investors aren't really differentiating among asset sizes. They just want broad equity exposure," Colas said.

The market has shown resilience to weak news. On Thursday, the S&P 500 held steady despite a 12 percent slide in shares of Apple after the iPhone and iPad maker's results. The tech giant is heavily weighted in both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 <.ndx> and in the past, its drop has suffocated stocks' broader gains.

JOBS DATA MAY TEST THE RALLY

In the last few days, the ratio of stocks hitting new highs versus those hitting new lows on a daily basis has started to diminish - a potential sign that the rally is narrowing to fewer names - and could be running out of gas.

Investors have also cited sentiment surveys that indicate high levels of bullishness among newsletter writers, a contrarian indicator, and momentum indicators are starting to also suggest the rally has perhaps come too far.

The market's resilience could be tested next week with Friday's release of the January non-farm payrolls report. About 155,000 jobs are seen being added in the month and the unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 7.8 percent.

"Staying over 1,500 sends up a flag of profit taking," said Jerry Harris, president of asset management at Sterne Agee, in Birmingham, Alabama. "Since recent jobless claims have made us optimistic on payrolls, if that doesn't come through, it will be a real risk to the rally."

A number of marquee names will report earnings next week, including bellwether companies such as Caterpillar Inc , Amazon.com Inc , Ford Motor Co and Pfizer Inc .

On a historic basis, valuations remain relatively low - the S&P 500's current price-to-earnings ratio sits at 15.66, which is just a tad above the historic level of 15.

Worries about the U.S. stock market's recent strength do not mean the market is in a bubble. Investors clearly don't feel that way at the moment.

"We're seeing more interest in equities overall, and a lot of flows from bonds into stocks," said Paul Zemsky, who helps oversee $445 billion as the New York-based head of asset allocation at ING Investment Management. "We've been increasing our exposure to risky assets."

For the week, the Dow climbed 1.8 percent, the S&P 500 rose 1.1 percent and the Nasdaq advanced 0.5 percent.

(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wall-street-week-ahead-bears-hibernate-stocks-near-234125924--sector.html

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Worth a thousand words: Vietnam photos from the frontline

Wounded Marine Gunnery Sgt. Jeremiah Purdie (center, with bandaged head) reaches toward a stricken comrade after a fierce firefight south of the DMZ, Vietnam, October 1966. (Larry Burrows?Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Click here to see the full collection at LIFE.com

Wounded Marine Gunnery Sgt. Jeremiah Purdie (center, with bandaged head) reaches toward a stricken comrade after a fierce firefight south of the DMZ, Vietnam, October 1966. (Larry Burrows?Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Click here to see the full collection at LIFE.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/photos/vietnam-photographs-from-the-frontline-slideshow/

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In Davos, examining the Arab Spring's mixed bag

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) ? The convulsions of the Arab world are taking center stage at this year's World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, where leaders and experts are much preoccupied with the region's bewildering combination of high hopes, deep disappointments and grave dangers that threaten to spill over borders.

Along the way, a divide seems to be emerging between those fundamentally impressed with the startling presence of once-unimaginable people power in long-repressive countries ? and others more troubled by the poverty and corruption that persists, the instability that has resulted, and the rise of both political Islam and jihadi insurgencies.

Asked whether democracy was prevailing in his native Egypt, former Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa hedged, saying democracy "is not only the ballot box. It is the respect of human rights, for rights of women, separation of powers, independence of the judiciary."

"This meaning of democracy we have not yet achieved," said Moussa, who ran unsuccessfully for president of Egypt last year.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, speaking on the same BBC-sponsored panel, saw the glass half full.

"If we had this meeting two years ago in Davos, no one would imagine there would be elected presidents in Cairo, in Tunisia, in Libya, in Yemen," he said. "So we have to be fair to these societies. In two years they achieved a lot of things."

Indeed, such intense focus on the Middle East was a far cry from the situation here two years ago, when the Arab Spring was just beginning and the region barely registered at a forum still focused on the global financial crisis. This week, as Egyptians prepare to mark on Friday the anniversary of the start of the revolution that swept aside Hosni Mubarak, the issue seems to come up at every panel that even tangentially touches on politics or strategy.

For many of the speakers, there is much to be disappointed about. The uprisings that first began in Tunisia in December 2010 did bring down dictators in Tunisia, Yemen, Libya and Egypt. But now Islamists and liberals wrangle over power, with the former mostly on top, democracy is far from certain, and economies are crumbling.

Moussa and Davutoglu agreed that a key accomplishment from the past two years was the casting aside of the notion that Arabs are condemned to autocratic rule, a belief long accepted even by elites in the Arab world itself.

More Arabs are politically engaged than ever before, demanding to be heard. They're learning what it means to question everything and everyone after decades under heavy autocracies where discussion, innovation and public participation were discouraged ? or crushed.

But it can be a double-edged sword, breeding instability and even violence when expectations cannot be met.

"On the one hand we have a political process which has really gone into uncharted waters (and) has proven to be much more difficult (and) much more divisive" than expected, said Tunisian economist Mustapha Kamel Nabli. Especially worrisome is the economic situation in which many countries are suffering low growth, high unemployment and fiscal difficulties, and yet "expectations have never been so high" among a newly empowered public, he said.

"People want things now. People want jobs now. People want increased wages now," he said. At the same time, political players are not necessarily responsible or capable enough to respond, he said. "This is not sustainable."

Addressing the issue at a news conference at Davos, Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil admitted that "economic challenges are clear in terms of high poverty rate and unemployment and budget deficits" ? but added that "we also consider that the potential of the Egyptian economy is huge."

Troubling in a different way is Syria ? a hemorrhaging wound, with death and destruction mounting in a civil war that the U.N. says has killed 60,000. Neither the regime of Bashar Assad nor the rebels seeking to oust him seem able to win, sectarian hatreds are burning ever stronger and the conflict threatens to destabilize Syria's neighbors.

Perhaps most worryingly for the West, armed Islamic militants, some with al-Qaida links, have emerged emboldened in Syria and elsewhere in the region, and they are better armed, with weapons from Libya's civil war now smuggled freely from country to country.

"The dog that didn't bark during the Arab Spring was al-Qaida," Vali Nasr, dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, told a panel devoted to "The Global Security Context." Now al-Qaida "is finding very important pockets in Syria, in the Sinai Peninsula, across North Africa in an arc from northern Nigeria through Mali and into northern Somalia."

Indeed, the presence of jihadis in the Syrian rebellion has certainly been a major reason for the world community's reluctance to arm the rebels or back then in a way that goes much beyond the rhetorical.

More complex is the rise of political Islam, which seems to prevail wherever free elections are held. The question on many minds is which way the Arab version of this movement will go: toward a reasonably modern and liberal model, like Turkey's, or toward the repression of the Islamic Republic of Iran? Even Saudi Arabia, a staunch ally of the West, is essentially a discomfiting model ? a place with no free elections, where women may not drive and must be accompanied by male escorts for some of the most routine actions.

Thus the new Islamist rulers in the region are constantly under scrutiny.

The main case in point is Egypt, where Islamist President Mohammed Morsi narrowly won a June 2012 vote. Despite promises of inclusiveness, he has kept policy-making and the choice of appointments almost entirely within the Muslim Brotherhood.

Last month saw deadly riots over the contentious Egyptian constitution, which critics say subtly but disturbingly opens the door to theocracy. Islamists finalized the draft in a rushed, all-night meeting, throwing in amendments to fit their needs, then pushed it through a swift referendum in which only a third of voters participated. The result is a document that could bring a much stricter implementation of Shariah, or Islamic law, than modern Egypt has ever seen.

Opponents worry the group is virtually stepping into the shoes of Mubarak's former ruling party. The opposition has called for mass protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square and in major cities around Egypt on Friday to mark the Jan. 25 anniversary of the anti-Mubarak uprising's start. This time, the aim is to show the extent of public anger against Morsi.

Is there a contradiction between Islam and democracy?

No, insisted Moussa, the former Arab League chief. "Most of us hate what al-Qaida is doing. Islamic society has nothing to do with this, and (Islam) does not contradict democracy," he said.

There remains the question of whether the spirit of revolt will eventually reach the Arab monarchies of the Gulf. They have largely remained untouched so far, with the exception of Bahrain, where Saudi Arabia and its allies have helped put down an uprising by disenfranchised Shiites.

Qatar has emerged as perhaps the biggest winner of the Arab Spring, using its oil and natural gas wealth to spread its influence by helping rebels in Libya and Syria and propping up Morsi's government in Egypt with financial aid.

Saudi Arabia has felt more vulnerable. It has its own restive Shiite population and, despite its oil riches, unemployment is high among its burgeoning youth population.

Saudi Prince Turki Al Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to the United States, sounded a skeptical note about Western-style democracy.

"A heard a lot here about democracy," he told one panel. "When I hear of something becoming a model or a mold or a fashion like democracy is today, immediately I cringe. I think those who think of democracy as a Viagra pill that could solve their dysfunction ... are not on the right path.

"You need to have your own solutions," Faisal said, to laughter and applause from many fellow Arabs in the audience.

___

Associated Press writer Lee Keath in Cairo contributed to this report.

___

Follow Dan Perry at www.twitter.com/perry_dan

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/davos-examining-arab-springs-mixed-bag-191941668.html

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American gets 35 years in Mumbai terror plot

Tom Gianni / AP

David Coleman Headley is shown in a courtroom sketch from May 2011.

By James B. Kelleher, Reuters

CHICAGO - David Headley, an American who admitted scouting targets for the 2008 Islamic militant raid on Mumbai and later agreed to testify against the plotters to avoid the death penalty, was sentenced on Thursday to 35 years in prison.

The sentence, handed down by U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber, was the maximum sought by federal prosecutors.

The attacks killed more than 160 people, including six Americans. Headley, a 52-year-old U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent, admitted videotaping sites that were targeted by the Mumbai attackers.

He was arrested in 2009 and pleaded guilty to 12 charges, including conspiracy to bomb places of public use and commit murder and plotting an attack on a Danish newspaper.

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After entering his plea in 2010, Headley cooperated with U.S. investigators and foreign intelligence agencies to avoid the death penalty and extradition to India, Pakistan or Denmark, agreeing to testify in foreign judicial proceedings, the government said.

In a memorandum filed with Judge Leinenweber earlier this week, the government said "there is little question that life imprisonment would be an appropriate punishment for Headley's incredibly serious crimes but for the significant value provided by his immediate and extensive cooperation."

Last week, Judge Leinenweber sentenced Pakistani-born businessman Tahawwur Rana to 14 years in federal prison for providing support to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group blamed for the Mumbai attacks.

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/24/16681398-american-who-aided-mumbai-terror-plotters-gets-35-years-in-prison?lite

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The Internet is Dead, or Something... | Social Media Today

The Internet is dead.

OK, that?s clearly not true, but we tend not to talk about it much anymore.

There was a time when you could spend an entire day on your computer without going online. I remember when we first got Internet, going online was a process. Going online was a task.?Because of the distance of our computer from our phone line, if I wanted to go online, I had to stretch out a long piece of phone cable, plug it into the phone jack, and then go for the dial-up modem, listen to that wonderful dial-up sound, and pray that it actually connected.

Oh, and we would announce that were going online. It was an activity. And it meant that for however long we were online, no one could call us:

?I was calling you for hours but kept getting a busy signal. Were you online??

And we started with a few of the free services like Juno and Netzero (and perhaps a few others I can?t recall), and bumped around those until the free services were gone, and signed up for the king of the moment: AOL. Remember them?

But now, we don?t even think about it. Rarely do we declare that we are ?going online.?

Why? Because we?re always online. I remember when I helped switch my parents over from dial-up to DSL I had a hard time explaining that theoretically they were ?always? online, while at the same time helping them understand that just because they were always online, didn?t mean that the world was creeping back at them through their phone line, ready to steal whatever they had on the computer.

With the pervasiveness of broadband, wireless, and mobile technology, we are all ?always connected.? We don?t go to the Internet, the Internet comes to us. If you?re like me, you get push notifications anytime someone interacts with you on any number of platforms, whether it?s an email, a blog comment, a tweet, something on Facebook or Instagram.

But we don?t talk about those things as much. They are just a part of our lives,?seamlessly integrated into our daily activities and doings.

Back in the days of CB radios (the seventies), I would go on and talk with friends. And what did we talk about? CB Radios!

Same with the early adoption of cell phone usage. It was common to hear someone saying, ?Yeah! I?m on the train! And talking to you!?

Not anymore. The fact that we?re no longer really talking about the Internet, per se, doesn?t mean it?s passe or ?dead.? It just means that we don?t think about it anymore. In some ways I think that?s what happening with Facebook. Some say it?s on the way out because people don?t talk about it anymore. I don?t think that?s true; I think we don?t talk about it anymore because we use it regularly without even really thinking about it. And when I say ?we? I?m talking mostly about the general public, not those of us who work in this field and get paid to think and talk about it.

Those outside of the marketing and communications world don?t obsess over these things the way some of us do.

And that?s why you?ll read blog posts ad nauseum about email being dead, or blogging, or whichever platform or technology we?re talking about here.

But the fact that we?re all online all the time is a good thing, at least for businesses and marketers looking to connect with us. It gives more opportunities for businesses to become a part of the social graph of individual users, and on their terms. More opportunities for customer service and lifestyle oriented marketing.

You want something that?s dead? Let?s talk 8-tracks, or leisure suits, or MySpace?oh?wait?

?

Authored by:

Ken Mueller

The founder of Inkling Media, where he does social media and marketing for small and medium-sized businesses. He also is an adjunct professor at the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design, teaching continuing education classes in social media and inbound marketing.

See complete profile

Source: http://socialmediatoday.com/kenmueller/1183906/internet-dead-or-something

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Summer of the Masquerade

Rynmar, a land ruled by an advanced race of wolves, was peaceful, that is until the Masquerade came foreward and ruined it all. Will Rynmar ever be the same again, or will the masked wolves destroy the world as they know it?

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This topic is an Out Of Character part of the roleplay, ?Summer of the Masquerade?. Anything posted here will also show up there.

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Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.

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Keep Spiders Out Of Your Home Equation

Most people understand that the function of a spider is to eat other insects, though it does not seem to make spiders more revered or welcomed. And if this is their function, why on earth are they inside your house? There should be nothing for them to eat in your home. That would mean spiders are hunting around your home for no reason, and if they are the type to make webs only to abandon them and leaving you to clean them up. Or worse, if spiders are hiding inside of a shoe or clothing, that would mean giving you a nasty scare or worse a nasty bite.

You need to know that spiders do not need to be in your home especially the kind that bite and are poisonous. This includes the infamous black widow and brown recluse. People can take care of insects in their home without the help of spiders. Once spiders move in, then you will need to contact a pest exterminator in New Jersey to take care of the problem.

Why are they in here?

Spiders may end up in your home for a wide variety of reasons. They may be following a food source, in which case a free evaluation from a pest control company may yield the discovery of a different infestation. They may have wandered in by accident, such as through a crack or hole, and decided since your home was safe and dry it might be an acceptable shelter to remain in for a while. Or they may have sought out your home for those very reasons warmth and shelter. Spiders arent aware that they may have ended up in a location where there is no food source. In some cases if enough spiders move in there is always the possibility that they will start eating each other.

The problem is that spiders can end up in all sorts of places we dont want them to be. In clothing. In shoes. In bedding. Leaving webs in corners and on fixtures. Occasionallyfalling from the ceiling into a persons lap. Many spiders can bite and have venom that can range from being mildly irritating to extremely painful and dangerous. Its best to simply keep spiders out of your home from the start.

How do I do that?

When you call a highly qualified New Jersey pest control company, they can evaluate your home at no charge and let you know what they find. They dont just look for the spiders, but instead where spiders might be getting their food, if there are other insects in the home, where spiders may crawl in, and what can be done to keep them out. The technician will explain all of these things to you and let you know what steps can be taken to get rid of them. They may also have green pest products that are safe and environmentally friendly as well for effective results that pose no risk to your home.

Once the spiders are gone, you can make repairs to your home by sealing up any crevices or putting mesh over vents to prevent them from getting in once again.

Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Keep-Spiders-Out-Of-Your-Home-Equation/4393924

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