Sector Snap: Solar energy companies

NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of solar energy products companies were mixed Thursday as a Jefferies analyst said he believes the worst may be behind the sector, as far as energy policies are concerned.

Analyst Scott Reynolds said in a client note that he sees growing support for national level solar programs in Europe and Asia. He noted said that diesel is still used to generate a significant portion of the world’s electricity, because outside of the U.S. natural gas is expensive for utilities. This makes solar an attractive option for many regions, he said.

“Solar is now competitive in many electricity markets and we believe a demand inflection will be subject to improving demand for electricity, favorable policy and capital availability, and fewer new subsidy programs,” Reynolds said. “Solar is seeing increasing support in Asia and the Middle East is taking a fresh look as they look to solve their growing energy consumption issues.”

The analyst boosted First Solar Inc.‘s price target to $ 30 from $ 21 and maintained a “Hold” rating. While Reynolds views the company as one that will do well long term, he doesn’t see any near-term catalysts. First Solar fell 9 cents to $ 30.63 in afternoon trading.

He raised his price target on SunPower Corp. shares from $ 5.00 to $ 8.00, saying overcapacity will remain a near-term problem for most solar companies, though brighter days may lie ahead. Sunpower shares rose 7 cents to $ 7.91.

He also boosted GT Advanced Technologies Inc. to “Hold” from “Underperform,” saying the downside was already priced into the stock. Shares of GT Advanced rose 13 cents, or 4.1 percent, to $ 3.27.

Other solar companies — including MEMC Electronic Materials Inc., Enphase Energy Inc. and LDK Solar Co. Ltd. — were lower.

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S&P 500 ends flat as bank profits temper growth concerns

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 ended nearly flat on Wednesday as solid earnings from two major banks and a bounceback in Apple shares offset concerns about a lower forecast for global growth in 2013.

Shares of Goldman Sachs hit their highest since May 2011 as earnings nearly tripled on increased revenue from dealmaking and lower compensation expenses. JPMorgan Chase said fourth-quarter net income jumped 53 percent and earnings for 2012 set a record.

JPMorgan shares rose 1 percent to $46.82, while Goldman climbed 4.1 percent to $141.09.

They were among the first big banks to report results and helped to lift estimates for S&P 500 corporate earnings slightly, to a 2.2 percent gain, Thomson Reuters data showed.

"Pretty solid numbers from both JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are putting a lot of momentum behind the financials, with a lot more names to report this week. But I think that's helping to put a better bid to the market overall," said Michael James, senior trader at Wedbush Morgan in Los Angeles.

Apple rebounded after three days of losses, helping the Nasdaq outperform the S&P 500 and Dow. Apple rose 4.2 percent to $506.09. It closed below $500 on Tuesday for the first time since February.

"There could not have been more negativity around Apple going into today. So was it due for an oversold bounce on a trading basis? Absolutely," James said.

A slow economic recovery in developed nations is holding back the global economy, the World Bank said on Tuesday, as it sharply scaled back its forecast for world growth in 2013 to 2.4 percent from an earlier forecast of 3.0 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 23.66 points, or 0.17 percent, at 13,511.23. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 0.29 points, or 0.02 percent, at 1,472.63. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 6.77 points, or 0.22 percent, at 3,117.54.

The biggest drag on the Dow was Boeing , whose shares fell 3.4 percent to $74.34 on concerns about its new Dreamliner passenger jets. Japan's two leading airlines grounded their fleets of 787s after an emergency landing, adding to safety concerns triggered by a series of recent incidents.

After the bell, shares of eBay were trading up 0.7 at $53.28, reversing an initial decline following the release of its results. Also after the close, shares of CBS rose 8.3 percent to $41.10 after it said it will convert its Outdoor Americas division into a real estate investment trust. [ID:nL4N0AL98X]

Earlier in the day, U.S. economic data showed consumer prices were flat in December, pointing to muted inflation pressures that should give the Federal Reserve room to prop up the economy by staying on its ultra-easy monetary policy path.

Other data showed U.S. homebuilder confidence in the market for single family homes held steady near seven year highs in January, suggesting the outlook for the housing market remained upbeat.

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.

Decliners outpaced advancers on the NYSE by nearly 8 to 7 and on the Nasdaq by almost 7 to 5.

(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Kenneth Barry)

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Hawaiian Lava Lake Hits New Record High

The orange glow atop Hawaii’s Mount Kilauea was a little stronger yesterday (Jan. 15) than it has been in recent weeks. The volcano’s lava lake lapped over the inner ledge of its vent, reaching a new high and bring molten rock closer than ever to the floor of Halema’uma’u crater.

The level was about 80 feet (25 meters) below the crater floor, the highest level reached since the summit vent blasted open in March 2008, the U.S. Geological Survey reports. The lava lake last surged on Oct. 23, 2012, when the high mark was measured at 100 feet (31 m) below the crater floor.

Since fresh lava appeared atop Kilauea in 2008, the lake level has varied from near the crater to out of sight, more than 650 feet (200 m) beneath the crater floor. The lake sits in a vent, which is actually a pipe-like crater within the smaller crater called Halema’uma’u. And Halema’uma’u is also a crater within a crater — the giant Kilauea caldera, the bowl left behind when the volcano blew its top about 1500 A.D.

The USGS also reports that activity is up at Pu’u ‘O’o crater, 12 miles (19 kilometers) from the summit in the volcano’s East Rift Zone. The crater was awash with lava flows in recent days, and lava overflowed from its northeast lava lake and north spatter cone, the USGS said in a statement. At the coast, oozing flows continues to slowly drop into the ocean.

This month marks the 30th anniversary of the eruption at Kilauea’s East Rift Zone. The volcano’s longest continuous rift zone eruption since the 15th century, the massive upwelling has created more than 500 acres of new land.

Reach Becky Oskin at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @beckyoskin. Follow OurAmazingPlanet on Twitter @OAPlanet. We’re also on Facebook and Google+.

Copyright 2013 OurAmazingPlanet, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Dow, S&P 500 inch up with retailers but Apple drags again

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and S&P 500 edged higher on Tuesday after stronger-than-expected retail data, though tech heavyweight Apple dragged on the market for a third day.

Apple was the biggest weight on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 <.ndx> after reports on Monday of cuts to orders for iPhone parts. Shares declined 3.2 percent to $485.92 and closed below $500 for the first time since February.

Retail stocks advanced after a government report showing retail sales rose more than expected in December was seen as a favorable sign for fourth-quarter growth. A separate report showed manufacturing activity in New York state contracted for the sixth month in a row in January.

"A little better-than-expected news on retail sales once again reinforces that the consumer remains alive and reasonably well," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia, which manages about $54 billion in assets.

Among retailers, American Eagle Outfitters Inc gained 4.8 percent to $20.58 and Gap Inc rose 3.4 percent to $32.46. The Morgan Stanley retail index <.mvr> advanced 1.5 percent.

Express Inc surged 23.8 percent to $17.40 after the apparel retailer raised its fourth-quarter and full year 2012 outlook.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 27.57 points, or 0.20 percent, at 13,534.89. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 1.66 points, or 0.11 percent, at 1,472.34. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 6.72 points, or 0.22 percent, at 3,110.78.

Apple's stock has lost about 7 percent in the last three sessions and is down 8.7 percent since the start of the year.

"It's tough to discern exactly what's putting the pressure on it. But at the end of the day, its influence, considering it's still 3 1/2 to 4 percent of the S&P 500 index, is being felt," Luschini said.

"I attribute (it) to just some of the bloom coming off of the rose. They haven't necessarily done anything wrong, as much as others have caught up."

Also keeping investors on edge is the looming debt ceiling debate. On Monday, President Barack Obama rejected any negotiations with Republicans over raising the U.S. debt ceiling. The United States could default on its debt if Congress does not increase the borrowing limit.

Resolving the debt ceiling is more a question of how than if. Investors don't expect a U.S. default, but they are also wary of another eleventh-hour agreement like the one in August 2011.

An expected lackluster earnings season, too, kept investors from taking aggressive bets. Analyst estimates for the quarter have fallen sharply since October. S&P 500 earnings growth is now seen up just 1.8 percent from a year ago, Thomson Reuters data showed.

Homebuilder Lennar reported a sharp rise in quarterly profit, but the stock declined 0.8 percent to $40.68 on worries that growth in orders was slowing.

Dell Inc shares added to Monday's gains, ending up 7.2 percent to $13.17 after sources said talks to take the computer maker private are in an advanced stage.

On the down side, shares of Facebook dropped 2.7 percent to $30.10. The company unveiled a "graph search" feature that CEO Mark Zuckerberg said would help its billion-plus users sort through content within the social network and its content feeds.

Volume was roughly 5.8 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 about 17 to 12 and on the Nasdaq by about 13 to 11.

(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)

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Apple drags on S&P, Nasdaq; Dell jumps after report

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended lower on Monday as worries over demand for Apple products drove down its shares and as investors braced for earnings disappointments.

But Dell Inc's stock jumped 13 percent to about a five-month high at $12.29, offsetting some of the tech-sector weakness, after Bloomberg reported the No. 3 personal computer maker is in talks with private equity firms to go private.

Tech heavyweight Apple lost 3.6 percent to $501.75 and was the biggest weight on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 <.ndx> indexes after reports that the company has cut orders for LCD screens and other parts for the iPhone 5 this quarter due to weak demand. The stock earlier hit a session low of $498.51, the first dip below $500 since February 16.

"With Apple, it seems as if the sentiment has shifted from this being the one stock that everybody wanted to own to people beginning to look at it as a company (whose) business is slowing down somewhat," said Eric Kuby, chief investment officer of North Star Investment Management Corp in Chicago.

Adding to investor unease, fourth-quarter earnings kick into high gear this week. Analyst estimates for the quarter have fallen sharply since October, with S&P 500 earnings growth now seen up just 1.9 percent from a year ago, Thomson Reuters data showed.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 18.89 points, or 0.14 percent, at 13,507.32. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 1.37 points, or 0.09 percent, at 1,470.68. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 8.13 points, or 0.26 percent, at 3,117.50.

Apple suppliers also lost ground, with Cirrus Logic off 9.4 percent at $28.62 and Qualcomm down 1 percent at $64.24.

The Dow fared better than the other two indexes, helped in part by Hewlett-Packard shares, which rose 4.9 percent to $16.95. The stock, which was up early in the session after JPMorgan upgraded its rating on the stock and raised its price target to $21 from $15, added to gains after the Dell report.

Appliance and electronics retailer Hhgregg Inc slumped 5.7 percent to $7.44 after the company cut its same-store sales forecast for the full year.

Earnings reports are due this week from Goldman Sachs , Bank of America , Intel and General Electric , among other companies. Third-quarter reports ended with a gain of just 0.1 percent, the worst for an S&P 500 profit period in three years, according to Thomson Reuters data.

President Barack Obama warned Congress at a news conference on Monday that a refusal to raise the U.S. debt ceiling next month could mean a government shutdown and trigger economic chaos.

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.

Decliners were about even with advancers on the NYSE while decliners outpaced advancers on the Nasdaq by about 12 to 11.

(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)

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NH case against 2 big oil companies gets under way

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Lawyers for two big oil companies accuse New Hampshire lawyers of spinning a court room fiction in their quest to hold the companies liable for damages over the use of the gasoline additive MTBE

Attorney James Quinn, representing ExxonMobil, says MBTE was the most effective way to reduce air pollution in what was not a made-up health crisis, but a real crisis.

In his opening statement Monday, Quinn argued that experts estimate that 2 million lives were saved by reducing lead and other pollutants in auto emissions.

The state’s lawyers say ExxonMobil and Citgo should pay $ 700 million in damages to monitor and clean up groundwater contamination caused by MTBE, which is now banned in New Hampshire.

The jury trial started Monday and is expected to last four months.

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Getting comfortable with living on the edge

LONDON (Reuters) - Just as you learn to put up with a nagging toothache, this week is expected to provide fresh evidence that the U.S. economy is getting used to life on the edge of the fiscal cliff.

Of course, putting off that trip to the dentist is not necessarily wise. The longer Washington delays, the more painful it will become to narrow its gaping budget deficit.

But surveys of U.S. consumer confidence in January and of house builder sentiment in December are likely to show resilience, buttressing the argument of equity bulls that Wall Street's firm start to the year is more than a relief rally or a desperate search for higher returns on investment.

Bluford Puttnam, chief economist of CME Group, said the U.S. economy had managed to grow almost 2 percent last year and create about 1.8 million jobs despite stagnation in Europe, a slowdown in China and the deadlocked budget talks.

"So I see a lot of momentum going into 2013," Puttnam said. "If we can get past this fiscal cliff, the economy is poised to have a much more confident year."

Despite fiscal tightening, he said growth could reach 2.5 percent to 3.0 percent.

Puttnam said the next rounds in the budget battle later this quarter would again be bitterly fought and the resolution would again satisfy no one. But, as with the showdown at the end of 2012, the economy would quickly move on.

"There is a one-in-ten chance that the government may even shut down for a week. It's just going to be ugly. And then it will be over. There will be some kind of compromise, and by April it will fade quickly into the background," he said.

THREE GORGES

U.S. retail sales are likely to have increased only 0.2 percent in December, dampened by the budget worries, according to economists polled by Reuters.

But a pair of regional Federal Reserve surveys and the monthly Reuters/University of Michigan consumer poll are projected to improve, while housing starts, new building permits and builders' confidence should all show that the housing recovery stands on firm foundations.

"That's what's really encouraging consumers to feel that the economy is getting better and that the momentum is broadly positive," said Jerry Webman, chief economist at OppenheimerFunds in New York.

While the phrase fiscal cliff used by U.S. Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke conjured up an image of an immediate plunge at the start of this year, in truth any austerity was always likely to take effect on the economy gradually.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch describes the challenges the United States faces in coming months rather as three fiscal gorges it must leap over.

The government could hit the debt ceiling approved by Congress as early as mid-February; across-the-board spending cuts are due to kick in on March 1; and the ‘continuing resolution' to fund all discretionary government spending expires on March 27.

Ideally, investors would like Democrats and Republicans to resolve all three issues with an overarching agreement to slash the deficit by $4 trillion over the next decade.

Instead, given the dysfunctional state of politics, Webman said the best that could be hoped for was another short-term fix that cuts spending and ends some tax breaks.

"The U.S. doesn't move by grand bargains, by big deals. We move by incremental decisions, and I think we'll make some imperfect but improved decisions over the course of 2013," he said.

CHINA ON THE MEND, EUROPE EERILY CALM

Encouraging economic news from China, including stronger-than-expected exports and imports in December, has also supported the start-of-year move by financial market investors out of cash and into riskier assets.

Figures on Friday are expected to show that the world's second-largest economy grew 7.8 percent from a year earlier, rebounding from the 7.4 percent pace of the third quarter and further allaying fears of a hard landing.

"Given some of the bearish commentary on China a few months ago, this should be a relief for markets and it's good for the world economy," said Derry Pickford, macro analyst at investment managers Ashburton in London.

Continuing calm in the euro zone has also helped equities, even though full-year German GDP data on Tuesday will serve as a reminder of the area's economic malaise.

Europe's largest economy contracted last quarter as factories slashed output in response to weak demand from Germany's neighbors, the Economy Ministry said on Friday.

At a news conference a day earlier, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said he expected a recovery in euro zone growth later this year. But he ruled out an early end to the ECB's crisis policy measures and cautioned that risks were still tilted to the downside. Markets shrugged.

In Europe as in the United States, investors seem to have got used to high levels of policy uncertainty, said Ethan Harris, chief U.S. economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

"It appears that the markets will look past brinkmanship moments unless policy makers break new ground," he said.

In Europe, that might mean not just threatening to eject Greece from the euro zone but actually forcing the exit. In the United States, that might mean not just threatening to violate the debt ceiling but actually doing so, Harris said in a report.

As long as such extreme events do not occur, Harris expects periodic swoons in confidence but no acute crisis.

"This renewed resilience is important because we expect many brinkmanship moments in the months ahead. A now-regular pattern has been established where deals are only struck at the last minute and often under market pressure," he wrote.

(Editing by Patrick Graham)

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Why Being Bored at Work May Be a Good Thing

Boredom on the job might actually be a boon for creativity, especially if your tedious tasks leave room for daydreaming, researchers say.

In a recent study, researchers asked 80 people to come up with different uses for a pair of polystyrene cups. But before this assignment, half of the participants had been instructed to copy numbers out of a telephone book for 15 minutes. Those who completed this initial boring task tended to come up with more creative uses for the cups compared with the other participants, the researchers said.

In the second part of the study, 30 participants again copied out the telephone numbers, while another group of 30 was instructed to simply read the numbers instead of writing them out. The people who had just read the numbers came up with more creative uses for cups relative to those who had to write out the phone-book listings, the researchers found.

They said this suggests passive boring activities, like reading or perhaps attending meetings, can lead to more creativity compared with more active, albeit boring, tasks like writing, which might not hold the same creativity benefits of boredom. Researcher Sandi Mann, of the University of Central Lancashire in England, said this might be because more passive activities leave more space for daydreaming. (Past research has suggested daydreaming is good for the mind, giving a person’s working memory — the mental work space that allows the brain to juggle multiple thoughts at once — a workout.)

“When we are bored, we search for stimulation and one way to do this is through daydreaming,” Mann wrote in an email to LiveScience. She described daydreaming as a key factor in creativity that “allows us to reformulate problems and situations in our heads.”

While workplace boredom is often seen as something to be eliminated, Mann said a small amount of downtime is probably very good.

“If life is too hectic and stimulating, creativity can be quashed,” she wrote.

Further research is needed to find out where the creativity that seems to arise from boredom gets expressed, Mann said.

“Do people who are bored at work become more creative in other areas of their work — or do they go home and write novels?”

The research was presented Wednesday (Jan. 9) at the annual conference of the British Psychological Society Division of Occupational Psychology being held in Chester, England.

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Wall Street Week Ahead: Attention turns to financial earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After over a month of watching Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue, Wall Street can get back to what it knows best: Wall Street.

The first full week of earnings season is dominated by the financial sector - big investment banks and commercial banks - just as retail investors, free from the "fiscal cliff" worries, have started to get back into the markets.

Equities have risen in the new year, rallying after the initial resolution of the fiscal cliff in Washington on January 2. The S&P 500 on Friday closed its second straight week of gains, leaving it just fractionally off a five-year closing high hit on Thursday.

An array of financial companies - including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase - will report on Wednesday. Bank of America and Citigroup will join on Thursday.

"The banks have a read on the economy, on the health of consumers, on the health of demand," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

"What we're looking for is demand. Demand from small business owners, from consumers."

EARNINGS AND ECONOMIC EXPECTATIONS

Investors were greeted with a slightly better-than-anticipated first week of earnings, but expectations were low and just a few companies reported results.

Fourth quarter earnings and revenues for S&P 500 companies are both expected to have grown by 1.9 percent in the past quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Few large corporations have reported, with Wells Fargo the first bank out of the gate on Friday, posting a record profit. The bank, however, made fewer mortgage loans than in the third quarter and its shares were down 0.8 percent for the day.

The KBW bank index <.bkx>, a gauge of U.S. bank stocks, is up about 30 percent from a low hit in June, rising in six of the last eight months, including January.

Investors will continue to watch earnings on Friday, as General Electric will round out the week after Intel's report on Thursday.

HOUSING, INDUSTRIAL DATA ON TAP

Next week will also feature the release of a wide range of economic data.

Tuesday will see the release of retail sales numbers and the Empire State manufacturing index, followed by CPI data on Wednesday.

Investors and analysts will also focus on the housing starts numbers and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve factory activity index on Thursday. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment numbers are due on Friday.

Jim Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis, said he expected to see housing numbers continue to climb.

"They won't be that surprising if they're good, they'll be rather eye-catching if they're not good," he said. "The underlying drive of the markets, I think, is economic data. That's been the catalyst."

POLITICAL ANXIETY

Worries about the protracted fiscal cliff negotiations drove the markets in the weeks before the ultimate January 2 resolution, but fear of the debt ceiling fight has yet to command investors' attention to the same extent.

The agreement was likely part of the reason for a rebound in flows to stocks. U.S.-based stock mutual funds gained $7.53 billion after the cliff resolution in the week ending January 9, the most in a week since May 2001, according to Thomson Reuters' Lipper.

Markets are unlikely to move on debt ceiling news unless prominent lawmakers signal that they are taking a surprising position in the debate.

The deal in Washington to avert the cliff set up another debt battle, which will play out in coming months alongside spending debates. But this alarm has been sounded before.

"The market will turn the corner on it when the debate heats up," Prudential Financial's Krosby said.

The CBOE Volatility index <.vix> a gauge of traders' anxiety, is off more than 25 percent so far this month and it recently hit its lowest since June 2007, before the recession began.

"The market doesn't react to the same news twice. It will have to be more brutal than the fiscal cliff," Krosby said. "The market has been conditioned that, at the end, they come up with an agreement."

(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; editing by Rodrigo Campos)

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Golden Globe Creator Eyes the Prize All Year Long

This Sunday (Jan. 13) Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will host the 70th annual Golden Globe Awards on NBC, and while millions of Americans will tune in to catch a glimpse of their favorite stars, those with a head for business may want to keep their eyes on the prize.

Each prize is a 24-karat-gold-plated statuette atop a marble pedestal, and since 2009, the production of this iconic trophy has been the business of Society Awards, a New York-based design and manufacturing company catering to the awards industry.

David Moritz, CEO of Society Awards, founded the company in 2007 and has since become something of a trophy tycoon, manufacturing prizes for the American Music Awards, MTV Movie and Video Music Awards, the Sundance Awards and the Academy of Country Music Awards, among many others. His company also makes the awards for some of reality television’s most famous competitions, such as “America’s Best Dance Crew,” and “Dancing With the Stars.”

Despite his busy pre-award-season schedule, Moritz took some time to talk with BusinessNewsDaily about his role in creating one of Hollywood’s most prestigious awards and how a one-time entertainment lawyer found his niche in an antiquated industry in need of an upgrade.

Gold-plated face lift

Before Society Awards took over production of the Golden Globe statues, how they were manufactured, stored, and delivered was less than ideal, Moritz recalled.

 “Prestigious awards would come in bubble wrap, arrive broken, late. It was a huge hassle for people and companies,” he said.

Moritz said it took some doing to persuade the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organization behind the awards show, to put its trust in his young company. But after many months of unrelenting salesmanship, the association agreed to give Society Awards a shot.

“I promised them that I would always personally take care of their every need and always think of new ways to make things better, and I work hard every year coming through on that promise for them,” Moritz said.

The first thing Moritz did was to provide the statuette with a much-needed face lift. The design of the globe, which features the earth encircled by a film strip atop a marble pedestal, didn’t change, but the process of making the statue underwent serious improvement. The award is now more lustrous and as durable as a car engine part.

Moritz, who is involved in every aspect of his company’s design and manufacturing process, explained the finer points of making a Golden Globe. The core of the globe is die-cast zinc. The zinc is injected under heat and pressure into a tool steel mold. The globe gets its gold sheen once a 24-karat electroplating is applied over the core. The globe is then hand-polished and lacquered and placed atop a base. The base, made of muted brown marble, comes from Eastern Europe. 

Moritz said that before Society Awards came along, no one in the industry would have gone to so much trouble to produce so few statues. But one of the secrets to Moritz’s success seems to be his willingness to go out of his way to make clients happy.

‘Luxury brand’ of trophies

Moritz has a grand vision for his company, and this is reflected in all of his business decisions, from the industrial production of every award to the immaculate interior of his offices.

Committed to excellent service, Moritz said he considers himself and his employees to be the awards’ “custodians,” responsible not only for manufacturing each award but for personalizing it and storing it until the ceremony.

Society Awards also works with its clients on marketing initiatives, collaborations with product designers, and ideas for new projects. While all these extra services clearly represent an effort to create the best possible relationship with clients, they also do a lot to further Society Awards’ image as a luxury brand.

“I aspire to be a luxury partner along with our clients so that they can be very proud of the products that they give to the celebrities,” Moritz said.

Nervous at the awards

Clients return his company’s many favors with some of their own. One of the perks of being the custodian of the Golden Globes is that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association extends an invitation to Moritz to attend the ceremony every year.

“When I first started going, I was a little bit nervous and really on my best behavior,” Moritz said. “In 2013 I’m going to let loose a lot more and be myself.”

Though Moritz isn’t the type to go around asking for autographs, he does mention that some of the celebrities who have won several of the awards do like to chat about their trophies.

“Winning the statue symbolizes admission into a select group, gaining recognition for being at the top of one’s craft, for world-class performance and achievement,” Moritz said.

Moritz, too, has reason to be proud. This efforts of this entertainment lawyer-turned-entrepreneur to provide the best products and services to his clients have not gone unnoticed.

Since Moritz landed the Golden Globe account in 2009, nearly every major awards organization in the U.S. has come to Society Awards looking for a more glamorous approach to manufacturing their prized trophies, he says.

And Moritz is far from finished in building an empire. In addition to Society Awards, he is the owner of two other companies, Mode Design Group and Ambition Beverages, which offer an array of luxury goods and services. Moritz says that he’s also working on opening several other design-based companies in the health food and home decor industries in the near future.

This story was provided by BusinessNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience.

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Wall Street ends flat as rally slows, earnings eyed

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks ended little changed on Friday as investors took a step back from buying ahead of next week's busy corporate earnings calendar.

Overall earnings are expected to grow by just 1.9 percent in this season, according to Thomson Reuters data. Analysts say that, with the bar low, there's room for companies to beat expectations, and that may have contributed to the rise in stocks so far in 2013.

That rally has slowed in the last few days.

"It's a market that is waiting for more of a catalyst from earnings," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

The S&P 500 index has gained 5 percent over the last two weeks to take the benchmark to five-year highs.

Wells Fargo & Co set a weak tone Friday after it reported results. It showed lower fourth-quarter net interest margin - a key measure of how much money banks make from loans - even as profit jumped.

The bank, which was the first major financial institution to report results this earnings season, also made fewer mortgage loans than in the third quarter.

Wells Fargo ended down 0.8 percent at $35.10, off its lows for the day, while bank shares weighed on the broader market. The S&P 500 financial sector index <.gspf> fell 0.3 percent after rallying more than 1 percent on Thursday.

Bank of America Corp , JPMorgan Chase & Co and Citigroup Inc are due to report results next week, as are other major companies including General Electric and Intel .

An agreement reached in Washington at the start of the year over the "fiscal cliff" saw investors in U.S.-based funds add $7.53 billion to stock mutual funds in the week ended Jan 9, the most since 2001, data from Thomson Reuters' Lipper service showed.

"The money poured into the market at the beginning of the year and you're going to need new money to bring this market higher," said Krosby. She said that in the short-term the market has a bias toward moving higher, even though it is overbought.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 17.21 points, or 0.13 percent, to 13,488.43. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> dipped 0.07 points to 1,472.05. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> added 3.88 points, or 0.12 percent, to 3,125.64.

For the week, the S&P and Dow both gained 0.4 percent and the Nasdaq rose 0.8 percent.

Boeing weighed on the Dow after a cracked cockpit window and an oil leak on separate flights in Japan added to problems with some of its Dreamliner 787 jets, compounding safety concerns about the new aircraft.

The U.S. Department of Transportation said the jet would be subject to a review of its critical systems by regulators. Boeing was the biggest loser on the Dow, falling 2.5 percent to $75.16.

Best Buy rallied after its results showed a small turnaround in U.S. stores, though same-store sales were flat during the key holiday season. Its shares jumped 16.4 percent to $14.21, making it the best performer on the S&P 500.

Dendreon Corp surged 21 percent to $6.17 after Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded the drugmaker's stock to "outperform" from "market-perform" and said it could be one of the best performers in 2013.

Volume was below the 2012 average of 6.42 billion shares traded a day, with roughly 5.93 billion shares changing hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT.

Advancers outpaced decliners on the New York Stock Exchange by 1,578 to 1,393, while advancers narrowly outnumbered decliners on the Nasdaq by 1,228 to 1,223.

(Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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Flu Activity Still High: How Long Will it Last?

Most of the country is seeing elevated levels of flu, a trend that may continue for several weeks, according to a new report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

As of Jan. 5, 47 states were reporting widespread flu activity, meaning more than 50 percent of regions in those states are experiencing flu, the CDC said. That’s up from 41 states the week before. [What You Can Do About the Raging Flu.]

However, flu activity did appear to be declining in some parts of the country, such as the South and Southwest.

Only time will tell whether flu activity in these areas of the country has reached a peak, and will start to decline, or whether visits to the doctor for flu-related symptoms will spike again in the coming weeks. The latest numbers from the CDC are from the last week of December, a time when doctors’ visits might have decreased due to the holiday season, said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC.

Nationally, the percentage of people visiting the doctor for flulike illness was 4.3 percent, down from 5.6 percent the week before, but above the level of flu activity typically seen during the summer months.

Twenty-four states are reporting high levels of flu activity — down from 29 states the previous week —  and 16 states are reporting moderate levels.

Flu season is unpredictable, so it’s not clear how much longer it will last, but typically, flu activity remains high for 12 weeks before peaking. So far this season, flu activity has remained elevated for five consecutive weeks.

This year’s flu vaccine is moderately effective at protecting against the flu, the CDC said. People who have been vaccinated are 62 percent less likely to visit the doctor for the flu than those who have not been vaccinated, Frieden said. This level of effectiveness is what researchers would expect in a year when the flu strains in the vaccine are closely matched to the strains in circulation.

While the flu vaccine is not perfect, it is the best tool we have to protect against the flu, Frieden said.

Vaccine shortages have been reported in some areas, and people who want to get vaccinated now may have to call or visit several places to find out where the vaccine is available, Frieden said.

Flu vaccination is recommended for everyone ages 6 months and older.

Follow Rachael Rettner on Twitter @RachaelRettner, or MyHealthNewsDaily @MyHealth_MHND. We’re also on Facebook & Google+.

Copyright 2013 MyHealthNewsDaily, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Wall Street climbs as China data puts S&P back at five-year high

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Thursday and the S&P 500 ended at a fresh five-year high as stronger-than-expected exports from China spurred optimism about global growth prospects.

Buying accelerated late in the day after the S&P 500 broke through technical resistance at 1,466.47, which was the market's closing level last Friday and the highest level since December 2007.

"Historically, January is a positive month for the market and you're seeing that play out," said Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at RDM Financial in Westport, Connecticut.

Financial and energy stocks were the day's top gainers. The financial sector index <.gspf> rose 1.4 percent and the energy sector <.gspe> was up 1 percent.

Analysts cited economic data out of China as the day's catalyst, which showed the country's export growth rebounded sharply to a seven-month high in December, a strong finish to the year after seven straight quarters of slowdown.

"It is being interpreted positively that they've stopped the downturn (in growth)," said Kurt Brunner, portfolio manager at Swarthmore Group in Philadelphia.

"If they continue to produce good growth, that's going to be supportive of our global manufacturers."

Wall Street's fear gauge, the CBOE Volatility Index <.vix> suggested markets were relatively calm. The VIX was down 2.3 percent at 13.49.

At Thursday's close, the S&P sits about 6 percent below its all-time closing high of 1,565.15, hit in October 2007.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 80.71 points, or 0.60 percent, to 13,471.22. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 11.10 points, or 0.76 percent, to 1,472.12. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> added 15.95 points, or 0.51 percent, to 3,121.76.

Thursday's session had earlier included a dip that traders said was triggered by a trade in the options market that prompted a large amount of S&P futures to hit the market at the same time. That sent the S&P 500 index down rapidly but those losses were reversed through the afternoon.

Financials benefited from events this week that added clarity to mortgage rules and banks' potential exposure to the housing market.

The U.S. government's consumer finance watchdog announced mortgage rules on Thursday that will force banks to use new criteria to determine whether a borrower can repay a home loan.

Earlier this week, several big mortgage lenders reached a deal with regulators to end a review of foreclosures mandated by the government.

"It's a resolution. It's not hanging over their heads," said Brunner.

Bank of America gained 3.1 percent to $11.78, while Morgan Stanley was up 3.7 percent at $20.34, one day after sources said the bank plans to cut jobs.

Shares of upscale jeweler Tiffany dropped 4.5 percent to $60.40 after it said sales were flat during the holidays.

Herbalife Ltd stepped up its defense against activist investor Bill Ackman, stressing it was a legitimate company with a mission to improve nutrition and help public health. The stock ended down 1.8 percent at $39.24 after a volatile day.

After the closing bell, American Express said it would cut about 5,400 jobs, and take about $600 million in after-tax charges in the fourth quarter. The stock added 0.7 percent to $61.20 in after-hours trade.

Volume was above the 2012 average of 6.42 billion shares traded a day, with roughly 6.77 billion shares changing hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT.

Advancers outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,916 to 1,039, while advancers also outpaced decliners on the Nasdaq by 1,439 to 1,036.

(Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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What Will It Take to Solve Climate Change?

Australia had to add a new color to its weather maps this week. Meteorologists used royal purple to denote an off-the-charts high temperature of 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit), part of an unprecedented heat wave and ongoing wildfires occurring down under this month. On the other side of the globe, 2012 proved the hottest year on record in the contiguous U.S., surpassing the previous record-holder by a full degree F (0.6 deg C). In short, global warming is continuing to turn up the heat–so what are we going to do about it?The goal is simple: reduce greenhouse gas emissions to restrain future warming or even begin to draw down carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. But the challenge of achieving that goal is large–greenhouse gas emissions are intimately related to fossil fuel combustion, which is the motor of the global economy.One idea to begin to solve this problem, mooted in 2004 by Princeton University mechanical engineer Robert Socolow and ecologist Stephen Pacala, was to identify what the scientists dubbed ” wedges”–one billion metric ton reductions in carbon emissions that could be maintained for the next 50 years. So, for example, stopping any further increase in greenhouse gas emissions could be done by employing several of these wedges, such as doubling vehicle fuel efficiency or replacing coal-fired power plants with nuclear ones. Employ enough of these wedges–seven in the estimation of Socolow and Pacala–and the problem of climate change begins to dissipate. And the researchers offered 15 potential wedges–ranging from carbon capture and storage to ending deforestation–to achieve the goal. As the co-authors put it in the paper presenting the idea published in Science: “Humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical, and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problem.”Great! The only problem is: if we do indeed possess the know-how, we have yet to employ it. Eight years later, global greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow faster than ever. We have lost time, and that time will cost us, both in terms of the cost of combating climate change and the ultimate impacts.According to a new analysis published online in Environmental Research Letters on January 9, the world now likely needs 12 wedges just to get back to the business-as-usual scenario outlined by Socolow and Pacala in 2004. Add another nine billion ton wedges if you want to stabilize emissions at last year’s levels, and add another 10 if you’d like to keep greenhouse gas concentrations from rising above 500 parts-per-million. Already, concentrations are at 394 ppm, up from 280 ppm before the dawn of widespread fossil fuel burning. That’s if you also want the global economy to continue to grow at the same time.Such global growth may be vital as societies strive to bring modern energy to the 2 billion or so people still reliant on wood, dung and kerosene for their cooking and lighting needs. Even more challenging, the key to reducing emissions is reducing the burning of fossil fuels, or at least the impacts of that burning–and all the technologies needed to do that are stalled (CCS), slow-moving (nuclear) or immature (renewables). The world will need to deploy “tens of terawatts of carbon-free energy in the next few decades,” as the researchers write in Environmental Research Letters.What such a “transformation” would mean specifically remains entirely undiscussed in the analysis, as Socolow notes in a written critique of the paper shared this week with journalists. Regardless, that kind of energy revolution certainly seems challenging, which is why some have begun to wonder whether it’s time to at least explore technologies that might reduce the worst of global warming, collectively known as geoengineering, such as fertilizing the ocean with iron or artificial volcanoes. Of course, such solutions present their own challenges like: who controls the planetary thermostat? “The stricter the [climate] goal, the greater the risk of recklessness,” such as ill-considered geoengineering schemes, warns Socolow.Or, as earth system scientist Stephen Davis of the University of California, Irvine, and lead author of the wedges reanalysis argues: “The only real solution to climate change is to stop dumping CO2 into the atmosphere altogether.” If we want to begin to restrain global warming, we better get started–and soon. 

Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs.Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
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Wall Street rises after Alcoa reports earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Wednesday, rebounding from two days of losses, as investors turned their focus to the first prominent results of the earnings season.

Stocks had retreated at the start of the week from the S&P 500's highest point in five years, hit last Friday, on worries about possible earnings weakness.

Shares of Alcoa Inc were down 0.5 percent to $9.08 after early gains, following the company's earnings release after the bell on Tuesday. The largest U.S. aluminum producer said it expects global demand for aluminum to grow in 2013.

Herbalife Ltd stock rose 4.2 percent to $39.95 in its most active day of trading in the company's history after hedge fund manager Dan Loeb took a large stake in the nutritional supplements seller. Prominent short-seller Bill Ackman had previously accused the company of being a "pyramid scheme," which Herbalife has denied.

Traders have been cautious as the current quarter shaped up like the previous one, with companies recently lowering expectations, said James Dailey, portfolio manager of Team Asset Strategy Fund in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Lower expectations leave room for companies to surprise investors even if their results are not particularly strong.

"The big question and focus is on revenue, and Alcoa had better-than-expected revenue," which calmed the market a little, Dailey said.

Overall, corporate profits were expected to beat the previous quarter's meager 0.1 percent rise. Both earnings and revenues in the fourth quarter are expected to have grown by 1.9 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 61.66 points, or 0.46 percent, to 13,390.51. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 3.87 points, or 0.27 percent, to 1,461.02. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> gained 14.00 points, or 0.45 percent, to 3,105.81.

Facebook Inc shares rose above $30 for the first time since July 2012, trading up 5.3 percent at $30.59. Facebook, which has been tight-lipped about its plans after its botched IPO in May, invited the media to its headquarters next week.

Clearwire Corp shares jumped 7.2 percent to $3.13 after Dish Network bid $2.28 billion for the company, beating out a previous Sprint offer and setting the stage for a takeover battle for the wireless service provider that owns crucial mobile spectrum.

Apollo Group Inc slid after heavier early losses, a day after it reported lower student sign-ups for the third straight quarter and cut its operating profit outlook for 2013. Apollo's shares were last off 7.8 percent at $19.32.

Volume was below the 2012 average of 6.42 billion shares traded per day, as 6.10 billion were traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE MKT and Nasdaq.

Advancing stocks outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 2,014 to 963, while on the Nasdaq advancers beat decliners 1,603 to 859.

(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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Wall Street slips as earnings season gets under way

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Tuesday, retreating from last week's rally on the "fiscal cliff" deal in Washington, as companies started to report results for the fourth quarter.

After a 4.3 percent jump in the two sessions around the close of the fiscal cliff negotiations, the S&P has declined a bit, with investors finding few catalysts to extend the rally that took the benchmark to five-year highs.

"We had a brief respite, courtesy of what happened on the fiscal cliff deal and the flip of the calendar with new money coming into the market," said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.

Shares of AT&T Inc dropped 1.7 percent to $34.35, making it one of the biggest drags on the S&P 500, after the company said it sold more than 10 million smartphones in the quarter.

This figure beat the same quarter in 2011, but also means increased costs for the wireless service provider. Providers like AT&T pay hefty subsidies to handset makers so that they can offer discounts to customers who commit to two-year contracts.

Fourth-quarter profits are expected to beat the previous quarter's lackluster results, but analyst estimates are down sharply from October. Quarterly earnings are expected to grow by 2.7 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data. Dow component Alcoa, the largest U.S. aluminum producer, reported results after the closing bell.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 55.44 points, or 0.41 percent, to 13,328.85. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> fell 4.74 points, or 0.32 percent, to 1,457.15. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> lost 7.01 points, or 0.23 percent, to 3,091.81.

"The stark reality of uncertainty with regard to earnings, plus the negotiations on the debt ceiling, are there and that doesn't give investors a lot of reason to take bets on the long side," Hellwig said.

With AT&T's fall, the S&P telecom services index <.gspl> was the worst performer of the 10 major S&P sectors, down 2.7 percent.

Sears Holdings shares dropped 6.4 percent to $40.16 a day after the company said Chairman Edward Lampert would take over as CEO from Louis D'Ambrosio, who is stepping down due to a family member's health issue. The U.S. retailer also reported a 1.8 percent decline in quarter-to-date sales at stores open at least a year.

Markets went lower as some of the first reported earnings were weak.

"It doesn't seem to be bouncing back, it might stay here or sell off a little further," said Stephen Carl, head of U.S. equity trading at The Williams Capital Group in New York.

Shares of restaurant-chain operator Yum Brands Inc fell 4.2 percent to $65.04 a day after the KFC parent warned sales in China, its largest market, shrank more than expected in the fourth quarter.

GameStop was one of the worst performers on the S&P 500 as shares slumped 6.3 percent to $23.19 after the video game retailer reported low customer traffic for the holiday season and cut its guidance.

Shares of Monsanto Co gained 2.5 percent to $98.42 after reaching a more than four-year high at $99.99. The world's largest seed company raised its earnings outlook for fiscal year 2013 and posted strong first-quarter results.

Volume was below the 2012 average of 6.42 billion shares traded per day, as 6.19 billion were traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE MKT and Nasdaq.

Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,495 to 1,458, while on the Nasdaq decliners beat advancers 1,305 to 1,158.

(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)

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Wall Street edges off five-year high, awaits earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks lost ground on Monday, as investors drew back from recent gains that lifted the S&P 500 to a five-year high, in anticipation of sluggish growth in corporate profits.

Shares of financial companies dipped after a group of major U.S. banks agreed to pay a total of $8.5 billion to end a government inquiry into faulty mortgage foreclosures. The KBW bank index <.bkx>, a gauge of U.S. bank stocks, was down 0.3 percent.

Other sectors were hit as well, most notably energy and utilities. The S&P 500 energy sector index <.gspe> fell 0.8 percent and the utilities sector <.gspu> was off 1.1 percent.

The day's decline came a session after the S&P 500 finished at a five-year high, boosted by a budget deal and strong economic data. The S&P 500 rose 4.6 percent last week, the best weekly gain in more than a year.

"It's a little bit of taking some risk off the table ahead of profit season, you're not going to see anything all that great" on earnings, said Larry Peruzzi, senior equity trader at Cabrera Capital Markets Inc in Boston.

Earnings are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results, and analysts' current estimates are down sharply from where they were in October. Fourth-quarter earnings growth is expected to come in at 2.8 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Aluminum company Alcoa Inc begins the reporting season by announcing its results after Tuesday's market close. Alcoa shares fell 1.7 percent at $9.10.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 50.92 points, or 0.38 percent, to 13,384.29. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> fell 4.58 points, or 0.31 percent, to 1,461.89. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> lost 2.84 points, or 0.09 percent, to 3,098.81.

Ten mortgage servicers - including Bank of America , Citigroup , JPMorgan , and Wells Fargo - agreed on Monday to pay $8.5 billion to end a case-by-case review of foreclosures required by U.S. regulators.

In a separate case, Bank of America also announced roughly $11.6 billion of settlements with mortgage finance company Fannie Mae and a $1.8 billion sale of collection rights on home loans.

The bank also entered into agreements with Nationstar Mortgage Holdings and Walter Investment Management to sell about $306 billion of residential mortgage servicing rights.

Bank of America shares lost 0.2 percent at $12.09 while Nationstar Mortgage Holdings jumped 16.8 percent to $38.83.

Citigroup shares were up 0.09 percent to $42.47, and Wells Fargo shares fell 0.5 percent to $34.77.

"The financials probably have the wind behind them now with a lot of the regulations coming out ... the market has to absorb a lot of the gains, and for that reason there's a pullback from this level," said Warren West, principal at Greentree Brokerage Services in Philadelphia.

Shares of U.S. jet maker Boeing Co dropped 2 percent after a Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft with no passengers on board caught fire at Boston's Logan International Airport on Monday morning.

Amazon.com shares hit their highest price ever at $269.22 after Morgan Stanley raised is rating on the stock. Shares were up 3.6 percent at $268.46.

Video-streaming service Netflix Inc shares gained 3.4 percent to $99.20 after it said it will carry previous seasons of some popular shows produced by Time Warner's Warner Bros Television.

Walt Disney Co stock fell 2.3 percent to $50.97. The company started an internal cost-cutting review several weeks ago that may include layoffs at its studio and other units, three people with knowledge of the effort told Reuters.

Volume was lower than average, as 4.78 billion shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE MKT and Nasdaq. This is well below the 2012 average of 6.42 billion per session.

Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,629 to 1,363, while on the Nasdaq decliners beat advancers 1,438 to 1,066.

(Reporting By Gabriel Debenedetti; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)

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Mock Mars trek finds down-to-Earth sleep woes

WASHINGTON (AP) — Astronauts have a down-to-Earth problem that could be even worse on a long trip to Mars: They can’t get enough sleep. And over time, the lack of slumber can turn intrepid space travelers into drowsy couch potatoes, a new study shows.

In a novel experiment, six volunteers were confined in a cramped mock spaceship in Moscow to simulate a 17-month voyage. It made most of the would-be spacemen lethargic, much like birds and bears heading into winter, gearing up for hibernation.

The men went into a prolonged funk. Four had considerable trouble sleeping, with one having minor problems and the sixth mostly unaffected. Some had depression issues. Sometimes, a few of the men squirreled themselves away into the most private nooks they could find. They didn’t move much. They avoided crucial exercise.

“This looks like something you see in birds in the winter,” said lead author David Dinges, a sleep expert at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

The experiment was run and funded by Russian and European space agencies. A report on the simulation’s effect on the men was published online Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dinges said scientists can’t tell if the men’s lethargy was just lack of sleep or was also caused by other factors: the close quarters, lack of privacy with so many cameras or being away from their families for so long.

It’s a problem that has to be fixed — and can be — before astronauts are sent to Mars, as President Barack Obama proposes for the mid-2030s, Dinges said. The trip to Mars, Earth’s closest neighbor, would take about six months each way.

The world record for continuous time in space — 14 months — is held by Dr. Valery Polyakov, who was on the Russian space station Mir in 1994 and 1995. American astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are scheduled to spend an entire year in space on the International Space Station, starting in 2015.

When leaving confinement in November 2011, the six volunteers — three Russians, a Frenchman, an Italian-Colombian and a Chinese — called their experience successful: “We can go forward and now plan to go to Mars and move confidently,” said volunteer Romain Charles of France.

The data scientists collected wasn’t as rosy. Devices on the volunteers’ wrists measured their movements and showed that when they were asleep and awake they were moving much less than they should have been, an unexpected and disturbing finding, Dinges said.

One of the six volunteers — who were paid $ 100,000 to live in the mock spaceship with limited and time-delayed contact with the outside world — slept nearly half an hour less each night than he did when he started the mission, affecting how he went about his day, Dinges said.

The loss of sleep matters because astronauts will have to perform intricate tasks on the way to Mars and while on the red planet. And they have to do vigorous exercises daily to fight the toll that near-zero gravity takes on the bones and other parts of the body. And most of the volunteers weren’t doing that.

The Moscow study, based on the ground, couldn’t take into account the added difficulty of near-zero gravity.

Former astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, who holds the American record for longest space mission, said he could relate to the study findings. During his 215 days in orbit on the space station, he sometimes had trouble getting back to sleep because he didn’t have a sense of lying down or having his head on a pillow.

The lack of sleep and lots of work caused him to sometimes nod off during the day, and the lack of gravity meant that when he fell asleep accidentally he would float away and awaken elsewhere in the station, he said.

“”It happened more than once, but I never thought it was a big deal. I thought it was amusing in a way,” Lopez-Alegria said in an interview.

Excerpts from astronaut diaries in a NASA report show prevalent sleep problems, with space station residents talking about nodding off while typing and obsessing over getting too much or too little sleep.

“I just need sleep,” one unidentified astronaut wrote.

“The morning started disastrously. I slept through two (wake-up) alarms… My body apparently went on strike for better working conditions,” wrote another.

Jerry Linenger, a medical doctor and NASA astronaut who spent more than four months on the Russian space station Mir in 1997, said he watched cosmonauts fall asleep in mid-conversation. And after a couple months, Linenger started having sleep problems despite his best efforts, which included using eye shades and bungee cords to put pressure on his body.

“It’s kind of like you’re wiped out after New Year’s Eve, kind of like a hangover or something,” Linenger said. “You are aware you’re not performing. So I’d be extra careful if I had to switch some buttons.”

Later in 1997, a cosmonaut on Mir who had a sleepless night accidentally disconnected a system that gathered solar power for the aging station, said Charles Czeisler, a sleep professor and space researcher at Harvard Medical School.

Czeisler, who wasn’t part of the Dinges study, said the new work was important in demonstrating the challenges of a Mars mission.

Astronauts do use sleeping pills to help them sleep.

And one solution experts like Dinges and Czeisler agree on is lighting. Blue evening light is essential for resetting a body’s natural rhythms, Czeisler said, and changing the color and timing of lighting has been shown to help people sleep on Earth.

___

Online:

Journal: http://www.pnas.org

___

Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears

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"Cliff" concerns give way to earnings focus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors' "fiscal cliff" worries are likely to give way to more fundamental concerns, like earnings, as fourth-quarter reports get under way next week.

Financial results, which begin after the market closes on Tuesday with aluminum company Alcoa , are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results. As a warning sign, analyst current estimates are down sharply from what they were in October.

That could set stocks up for more volatility following a week of sharp gains that put the Standard & Poor's 500 index <.spx> on Friday at the highest close since December 31, 2007. The index also registered its biggest weekly percentage gain in more than a year.

Based on a Reuters analysis, Europe ranks among the chief concerns cited by companies that warned on fourth-quarter results. Uncertainty about the region and its weak economic outlook were cited by more than half of the 25 largest S&P 500 companies that issued warnings.

In the most recent earnings conference calls, macroeconomic worries were cited by 10 companies while the U.S. "fiscal cliff" was cited by at least nine as reasons for their earnings warnings.

"The number of things that could go wrong isn't so high, but the magnitude of how wrong they could go is what's worrisome," said Kurt Winters, senior portfolio manager for Whitebox Mutual Funds in Minneapolis.

Negative-to-positive guidance by S&P 500 companies for the fourth quarter was 3.6 to 1, the second worst since the third quarter of 2001, according to Thomson Reuters data.

U.S. lawmakers narrowly averted the "fiscal cliff" by coming to a last-minute agreement on a bill to avoid steep tax hikes this weeks -- driving the rally in stocks -- but the battle over further spending cuts is expected to resume in two months.

Investors also have seen a revival of worries about Europe's sovereign debt problems, with Moody's in November downgrading France's credit rating and debt crises looming for Spain and other countries.

"You have a recession in Europe as a base case. Europe is still the biggest trading partner with a lot of U.S. companies, and it's still a big chunk of global capital spending," said Adam Parker, chief U.S. equity strategist at Morgan Stanley in New York.

Among companies citing worries about Europe was eBay , whose chief financial officer, Bob Swan, spoke of "macro pressures from Europe" in the company's October earnings conference call.

REVENUE WORRIES

One of the biggest worries voiced about earnings has been whether companies will be able to continue to boost profit growth despite relatively weak revenue growth.

S&P 500 revenue fell 0.8 percent in the third quarter for the first decline since the third quarter of 2009, Thomson Reuters data showed. Earnings growth for the quarter was a paltry 0.1 percent after briefly dipping into negative territory.

On top of that, just 40 percent of S&P 500 companies beat revenue expectations in the third quarter, while 64.2 percent beat earnings estimates, the Thomson Reuters data showed.

For the fourth quarter, estimates are slightly better but are well off estimates for the quarter from just a few months earlier. S&P 500 earnings are expected to have risen 2.8 percent while revenue is expected to have gone up 1.9 percent.

Back in October, earnings growth for the fourth quarter was forecast up 9.9 percent.

In spite of the cautious outlooks, some analysts still see a good chance for earnings beats this reporting period.

"The thinking is you need top line growth for earnings to continue to expand, and we've seen the market defy that," said Mike Jackson, founder of Denver-based investment firm T3 Equity Labs.

Based on his analysis, energy, industrials and consumer discretionary are the S&P sectors most likely to beat earnings expectations in the upcoming season, while consumer staples, materials and utilities are the least likely to beat, Jackson said.

Sounding a positive note on Friday, drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co said it expects profit in 2013 to increase by more than Wall Street had been forecasting, primarily due to cost controls and improved productivity.

(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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‘Universal’ Personality Traits Are Not, Study Finds

Psychologists can get a pretty clear picture of someone’s personality by evaluating to what degree they express traits known as the “Big Five” — openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. These factors are thought to be rooted in biology and to transcend cultural differences, but a new study of an indigenous Bolivian society shows the traits might not be universal after all.

Researchers spent two years studying more than 1,000 Tsimane forager-farmers, who live in isolated communities, each ranging from 30 to 500 people. Most are not formally educated, and they live in extended family clusters, sharing food and labor and limiting contact with outsiders.

The team first surveyed adults in the villages with a standard questionnaire (translated into the Tsimane language) that assesses the Big Five personality traits. Next the researchers asked Tsimane participants to evaluate their spouse’s personality. This second part revealed that the subject’s personality as reported by his or her spouse also did not fit with the Big Five traits. The researchers found that their results held true even when they controlled for education level, Spanish fluency, gender and age.

The team instead discovered evidence of a pair of broad traits that could be considered the Tsimane “Big Two.” The researchers labeled one prosociality — socially beneficial behavior, which among the Tsimane, looks like a mix of items under the extroversion and agreeableness portions of the Big Five. The other trait is industriousness, which blends the efficiency, perseverance and thoroughness found in the conscientiousness portion of the Big Five, the researchers said.

The team says their results don’t support the universality of the Big Five, and they speculated that the social structure of the Tsimane could have resulted in a trait structure different from the Big Five.

“Individuals in all human societies face similar goals of learning important productive skills, avoiding environmental dangers, cooperating and competing effectively in social encounters, and finding suitable mates. In small-scale societies, individuals have fewer choices for social or sexual partners and limited domains of opportunities for cultural success and proficiency. This may require abilities that link aspects of different traits, resulting in a trait structure other than the Big Five,” the team wrote.

The research was detailed online in December in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

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