Is Facebook envy making you miserable?

LONDON (Reuters) – Witnessing friends’ vacations, love lives and work successes on Facebook can cause envy and trigger feelings of misery and loneliness, according to German researchers.

A study conducted jointly by two German universities found rampant envy on Facebook, the world’s largest social network that now has over one billion users and has produced an unprecedented platform for social comparison.

The researchers found that one in three people felt worse after visiting the site and more dissatisfied with their lives, while people who browsed without contributing were affected the most.

“We were surprised by how many people have a negative experience from Facebook with envy leaving them feeling lonely, frustrated or angry,” researcher Hanna Krasnova from the Institute of Information Systems at Berlin’s Humboldt University told Reuters.

“From our observations some of these people will then leave Facebook or at least reduce their use of the site,” said Krasnova, adding to speculation that Facebook could be reaching saturation point in some markets.

Researchers from Humboldt University and from Darmstadt’s Technical University found vacation photos were the biggest cause of resentment with more than half of envy incidents triggered by holiday snaps on Facebook.

Social interaction was the second most common cause of envy as users could compare how many birthday greetings they received to those of their Facebook friends and how many “likes” or comments were made on photos and postings.

“Passive following triggers invidious emotions, with users mainly envying happiness of others, the way others spend their vacations and socialize,” the researchers said in the report “Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users’ Life Satisfaction?” released on Tuesday.

“The spread and ubiquitous presence of envy on Social Networking Sites is shown to undermine users’ life satisfaction.”

They found people aged in their mid-30s were most likely to envy family happiness while women were more likely to envy physical attractiveness.

These feelings of envy were found to prompt some users to boast more about their achievements on the site run by Facebook Inc. to portray themselves in a better light.

Men were shown to post more self-promotional content on Facebook to let people know about their accomplishments while women stressed their good looks and social lives.

The researchers based their findings on two studies involving 600 people with the results to be presented at a conference on information systems in Germany in February.

The first study looked at the scale, scope and nature of envy incidents triggered by Facebook and the second at how envy was linked to passive use of Facebook and life satisfaction.

The researchers said the respondents in both studies were German but they expected the findings to hold internationally as envy is a universal feeling and possibly impact Facebook usage.

“From a provider’s perspective, our findings signal that users frequently perceive Facebook as a stressful environment, which may, in the long-run, endanger platform sustainability,” the researchers concluded.

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith, editing by Paul Casciato)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Is Facebook envy making you miserable?
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/is-facebook-envy-making-you-miserable/
Link To Post : Is Facebook envy making you miserable?
Rating:
100%

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

Read More..

Michelle, Sasha and Malia Obama Don Colorful Coats at Inauguration

01/21/2013 at 12:15 PM EST

From left: Sasha, Malia and Michelle Obama on Jan. 21, 2013

Mark Wilson/Getty

It's a big day for the Obamas.

While watching President Barack Obama be sworn in publicly for his second term in office, Michelle Obama and their daughters, Sasha and Malia, looked on proudly from the platform in front of the Capitol.

But not all eyes were on the Commander in Chief, who officially started his term on Sunday. Many Inauguration watchers are eager to see what the women in his life are wearing.

The First Lady, who is sporting a new do, dressed in a navy Thom Browne coat and dress with the fabric inspired by the textures of a man's silk tie.

She accessorized with Reed Krakoff boots and a jeweled belt and gloves from J. Crew and earrings designed by Cathy Waterman. At the end of the Inaugural festivities, Michelle's entire outfit will go to the National Archives.

Malia, 14, also wore an ensemble by J. Crew, including the Double-cloth Lady coat in plum. And her sister Sasha, 11, wore a Kate Spade coat and dress.

Read More..

Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.

A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home the next day, then loaded up on medicine and returned to work.

"It's a balancing act" between physical health and financial well-being, she said.

An unusually early and vigorous flu season is drawing attention to a cause that has scored victories but also hit roadblocks in recent years: mandatory paid sick leave for a third of civilian workers — more than 40 million people — who don't have it.

Supporters and opponents are particularly watching New York City, where lawmakers are weighing a sick leave proposal amid a competitive mayoral race.

Pointing to a flu outbreak that the governor has called a public health emergency, dozens of doctors, nurses, lawmakers and activists — some in surgical masks — rallied Friday on the City Hall steps to call for passage of the measure, which has awaited a City Council vote for nearly three years. Two likely mayoral contenders have also pressed the point.

The flu spike is making people more aware of the argument for sick pay, said Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values at Work, which promotes paid sick time initiatives around the country. "There's people who say, 'OK, I get it — you don't want your server coughing on your food,'" she said.

Advocates have cast paid sick time as both a workforce issue akin to parental leave and "living wage" laws, and a public health priority.

But to some business owners, paid sick leave is an impractical and unfair burden for small operations. Critics also say the timing is bad, given the choppy economy and the hardships inflicted by Superstorm Sandy.

Michael Sinensky, an owner of seven bars and restaurants around the city, was against the sick time proposal before Sandy. And after the storm shut down four of his restaurants for days or weeks, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that his insurers have yet to pay, "we're in survival mode."

"We're at the point, right now, where we cannot afford additional social initiatives," said Sinensky, whose roughly 500 employees switch shifts if they can't work, an arrangement that some restaurateurs say benefits workers because paid sick time wouldn't include tips.

Employees without sick days are more likely to go to work with a contagious illness, send an ill child to school or day care and use hospital emergency rooms for care, according to a 2010 survey by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. A 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that a lack of sick time helped spread 5 million cases of flu-like illness during the 2009 swine flu outbreak.

To be sure, many employees entitled to sick time go to work ill anyway, out of dedication or at least a desire to project it. But the work-through-it ethic is shifting somewhat amid growing awareness about spreading sickness.

"Right now, where companies' incentives lie is butting right up against this concern over people coming into the workplace, infecting others and bringing productivity of a whole company down," said John A. Challenger, CEO of employer consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Paid sick day requirements are often popular in polls, but only four places have them: San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and the state of Connecticut. The specific provisions vary.

Milwaukee voters approved a sick time requirement in 2008, but the state Legislature passed a law blocking it. Philadelphia's mayor vetoed a sick leave measure in 2011; lawmakers have since instituted a sick time requirement for businesses with city contracts. Voters rejected a paid sick day measure in Denver in 2011.

In New York, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer's proposal would require up to five paid sick days a year at businesses with at least five employees. It wouldn't include independent contractors, such as Zavala, who supports the idea nonetheless.

The idea boasts such supporters as feminist Gloria Steinem and "Sex and the City" actress Cynthia Nixon, as well as a majority of City Council members and a coalition of unions, women's groups and public health advocates. But it also faces influential opponents, including business groups, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has virtually complete control over what matters come to a vote.

Quinn, who is expected to run for mayor, said she considers paid sick leave a worthy goal but doesn't think it would be wise to implement it in a sluggish economy. Two of her likely opponents, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu, have reiterated calls for paid sick leave in light of the flu season.

While the debate plays out, Emilio Palaguachi is recovering from the flu and looking for a job. The father of four was abruptly fired without explanation earlier this month from his job at a deli after taking a day off to go to a doctor, he said. His former employer couldn't be reached by telephone.

"I needed work," Palaguachi said after Friday's City Hall rally, but "I needed to see the doctor because I'm sick."

___

Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

Read More..

European shares test two-year highs, yen volatile before BOJ

LONDON (Reuters) - European shares inched towards two-year highs on Monday, as a political attempt to break a budget impasse in the United States and expectations of aggressive Japanese stimulus bolstered the appetite for shares.

U.S. House Republican leaders said on Friday they would seek to pass a three-month extension of federal borrowing authority in the coming days to buy time for the Democrat-controlled Senate to pass a plan to shrink budget deficits.

European shares <.fteu3> were supported by the news <.eu>, but with no clear response from the Democrats and a thin session expected due to a market holiday in the United States, the impact on assets such as bonds and commodities was limited.

By 1500 GMT London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> were up 0.4 to 0.6 percent, leaving the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 within touching distance of a two-year high and MSCI's world index <.miwd00000pus> steady at a 20-month high. <.l><.eu/>

Expectations that the Bank of Japan will deliver a bold monetary easing plan at the end of its two-day meeting on Tuesday also supported shares and created choppy conditions in the currency market.

According to sources familiar with the BoJ's thinking, the government of new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the central bank have agreed to set 2 percent inflation as a new target, supplanting a softer 1 percent 'goal'.

The yen, which has fallen 13 percent against the dollar over the last two months as the shift in Japanese policy has taken shape, touched a new 2-1/2 year low in early trading but then firmed as traders cut short positions given the BOJ has often fallen short of market expectations.

"Investors are being mindful that the moves we have seen over the course of the last month or two are just worth locking in at least until we understand how the BOJ are really going to play in the future," said Jeremy Stretch, head of currency strategy at CIBC World Markets.

CURRENCY WARS

Japanese equities have surged in recent weeks in anticipation of a more aggressive monetary policy stance, but not everyone is happy.

The slump in the yen has prompted Russia's deputy central bank governor to warn of a new round of 'currency wars' and the medium-term risk of running ultra-loose monetary policies is likely to be a theme of the World Economic Forum in Davos, which opens on Wednesday.

With little in the way of economic data or debt issuance and U.S. markets shut for the Martin Luther King public holiday, the rest of the day was expected to be a fairly quiet for investors.

As the first European finance ministers' meeting of the year got under way, most euro zone government bonds were trading virtually flat and the euro was steady at $1.3316.

Market pressure on Europe is now less intense thanks to the European Central Bank's promise to prevent a collapse of the euro. Policymakers are set to discuss Cyprus's plight and plans for the euro zone's bailout fund to directly recapitalize banks.

French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said as he arrived at the Brussels meeting that a proper recapitalization strategy was very important.

"Negotiations will be complex, and a final decision is unlikely to emerge soon. Risks for sovereign spreads in the periphery should be limited, but we have some concerns that the long-term solution may fall short of what a real banking union needs," said UniCredit economist Marco Valli.

POLITICAL GAME

The efforts by Republican lawmakers to give the U.S. government leeway to pay its bills for another three months dented demand for safe haven assets and pushed German government bond yields near the top of this year's range.

The U.S. Treasury needs congressional authorization to raise the current $16.4 trillion limit on U.S. debt sometime between mid-February and early March. A failure to achieve that could lead to a debt default.

"This is part of the political game, it remains to be seen whether the Democrats will accept it," KBC strategist Piet Lammens said, adding that investors' working scenario was that a solution to raise the ceiling would be eventually found anyway.

One of the key factors that drove 2-year German yields higher last week was also the prospect of sizeable early repayments of the 1 trillion euros euro zone banks took from the ECB roughly a year ago.

The central bank will publish on Friday how much banks plan to return at the optional first repayment date on January 30. A Reuters poll on Monday showed around 100 billion euros are expected to be repaid although some predict it could be as high as 250 billion.

OIL OVERSUPPLY

German markets showed no reaction after the country's center-left opposition party edged Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives from power in a regional election on Sunday, reviving its flagging hopes for September's national election.

The Bundesbank's latest report delivered an upbeat message on the country's economy, saying a recent slump should be short-lived and may have already bottomed out.

Oil prices took their cues from a report in the United States at the end of last week that showed consumer sentiment at its weakest in a year as a result of the uncertainty surrounding the country's debt crisis.

Concerns about demand overshadowed supply disruption fears reinforced by the Islamist militant attack and hostage-taking at a gas plant in Algeria, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Brent futures were down by 40 cents to $111.47 per barrel by mid-afternoon. U.S. crude shed 43 cents to $95.13 per barrel after touching a four-month high last week.

"The over-riding fundamental feeling in the market is that crude oil is over-supplied in 2013," said Tony Nunan, an oil risk manager at Mitsubishi.

Last week's data showing a pick-up in the Chinese economy helped keep growth-sensitive copper prices steady at roughly $8,056 an ounce. Gold, meanwhile, reversed Friday's losses to stand at $1,688 an ounce.

(Additional reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Marious Zaharia and Anooja Debnath; Editing by Peter Graff)

Read More..

Algerian Prime Minister Says at Least 37 Foreigners Dead in Siege

Anis Belghoul/Associated Press

Algerian Army vehicles on Sunday near a remote town in southeastern Algeria where hostages were taken in a four-day ordeal.

ALGIERS — In his first official tally of the deadly scope of the Algerian hostage crisis, Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said Monday that the known death toll among the foreign captives had risen steeply to 37 from 23, and that five additional foreigners remained unaccounted for.

In a televised news conference, Mr. Sellal also said that 29 militants were killed and that three were captured alive during the four-day ordeal that terrorized a remote Algerian gas field refining site. Two of the attackers were Canadian, he contended.

Algerian officials had been forecasting that the tally of foreign dead would rise from a preliminary estimate of 23, a concern that was reinforced by reports that a significant number of hostages from Japan and the Philippines had been killed at the site. On Monday, the Algerian prime minister said the dead came from eight different nations, without specifying which ones. He also said that one Algerian hostage had been killed as well.

Mr. Sellal was more specific about the attackers, saying at the news conference that they had come from Egypt, Canada, Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Tunisia, although it was unclear how he knew for sure. Algerian officials have been saying that few if any of the attackers are believed to have been Algerian.

The prime minister asserted that the attackers had started out in northern Mali — a claim made by the attackers themselves, which had initially been dismissed by the Algerian authorities as far-fetched because the Malian border is hundreds of miles away.

But the prime minister added that the attackers had ultimately crossed into Algeria through its eastern border with Libya, which is much closer to the refining site. If true, it would serve as a powerful a reminder of Libya’s instability since the overthrow of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi more than a year ago, and of the enormous distances that complicate the monitoring of national boundaries in the vast Sahara.

“We would need two NATOs to monitor our borders,” Mr. Sellal said.

He corroborated assertions made by other Algerian officials and accounts from freed hostages that the militants had intended to destroy the gas complex and had booby-trapped some hostages with explosives.

In all, the prime minister said, 790 workers were on the site, including 134 foreigners of 26 nationalities, when it was first seized by a heavily armed militant band in one of the most brazen assaults in years.

The prime minister’s news conference represented the most detailed Algerian tally of casualties in the days of alternating standoff and confrontation that began early on Wednesday as the raiders swept in from the desert to take over the internationally managed gas plant, hundreds of miles from Algiers.

Earlier Monday, the Philippine Foreign Affairs Department announced casualties among its citizens for the first time, saying six Filipino hostages had been killed and four were still missing.

Additionally, citing an unidentified government source, Reuters said Algeria had informed Japan that nine of its citizens had died — if corroborated, the highest death toll by a nation reported so far — while previous Japanese accounts had spoken of 10 unaccounted for. Officials in Tokyo declined to confirm those figures, but news reports quoted Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as saying that seven Japanese captives died and that three were still unaccounted for.

Japan’s NHK television interviewed an unidentified Algerian worker who escaped the gas plant. He said that not long after sporadic firing started, militants appeared, armed with machine guns, antitank rockets and antiaircraft missiles. He said the attackers were kind to Algerian staff members, who were given food and blankets. Their targets were the foreign workers, who were rounded up.

The first ones he saw killed were two Japanese and a Filipino, gunned down before his eyes. He said the militants made the foreign hostages wear bombs strapped onto their bodies. He fled during the army attack, and did not know if those foreigners had survived.

The standoff between several dozen radical Islamists and Algerian security services came to a bloody conclusion on Saturday when the Algerians assaulted the kidnappers’ last redoubt at the refining site, where hundreds of Algerian and scores of expatriate workers were employed.

The victims — from the United States, Britain, France, Japan and other countries — were killed after hours of harrowing captivity. An unknown number of the hostages died in the assault on Saturday; Algerian officials said they also killed most of the remaining hostage takers, who they said were followers of Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a warlord linked to Al Qaeda based in northern Mali. A regional Web site reported that he had issued a video claiming responsibility for the attack.

Adam Nossiter reported from Algiers, and Alan Cowell from London. Reporting was contributed by Steven Erlanger and Scott Sayare from Paris, Alan Cowell and Stanley Reed from London, Floyd Whaley from Manila, Martin Fackler from Tokyo, Eric Schmitt and Michael R. Gordon from Washington, and Michael Schwirtz from New York.

Read More..

Atari US files for Ch. 11 to separate from parent

NEW YORK (AP) — Video game maker Atari’s U.S. operations have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in an effort to separate from their French parent company.

In a statement, Atari says the move is necessary to secure investments it needs to grow in mobile and digital gaming.

Atari’s U.S. operations have shifted to focus on digital games and licensing, including developing mobile games, and have become a growth engine for its owner. France’s Infogrames Entertainment first took a stake in Atari in 2000. It acquired the remaining stake in 2008 and changed its name to Atari S.A.

But the U.S. operations have been better performing than the rest of the company. In fiscal 2012 digital and licensing revenue both grew significantly and contributed 70 percent of revenue, while sales in bricks-and-mortar stores declined.

In December, Atari S.A. said a credit agreement it entered into with investor BlueBay would lapse at the end of the year and the company was seeking other ways to raise capital. It added that it expects to report a “significant loss” for fiscal 2012.

Atari, which turned 40 last year, was a videogame pioneer with games like “Pong” and “Centipede,” but has changed owners several times amid financial problems. In its filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York, Atari said it had $ 1 million to $ 10 million in assets and $ 10 million to $ 50 million in debt. It is seeking approval for $ 5.25 million in debtor-in-possession financing from private investment firm Tenor Capital Management.

Atari said it expects to sell its assets or confirm a restructuring plan within the next three to six months.

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Atari US files for Ch. 11 to separate from parent
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/atari-us-files-for-ch-11-to-separate-from-parent/
Link To Post : Atari US files for Ch. 11 to separate from parent
Rating:
100%

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

Read More..

Jessica Biel & Fan Have Impromptu Photo Shoot at Sundance

Caught in the Act

01/20/2013 at 12:45 PM EST

Jessica Biel is bringing the sunshine to Sundance!

The Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes actress had an impromptu photo shoot with a young girl when she visited the Variety Studio in Park City, Utah, on Saturday.

The duo posed for multiple shots in a photo booth until they got a snapshot that was "just right," an onlooker tells PEOPLE.

"They were having a great time," the source adds.

– Patrick Gomez

Read More..

Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.

A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home the next day, then loaded up on medicine and returned to work.

"It's a balancing act" between physical health and financial well-being, she said.

An unusually early and vigorous flu season is drawing attention to a cause that has scored victories but also hit roadblocks in recent years: mandatory paid sick leave for the 40 percent of American private-sector workers — more than 40 million people — who don't have it.

Supporters and opponents are particularly watching New York City, where lawmakers are weighing a sick leave proposal amid a competitive mayoral race.

Pointing to a flu outbreak that the governor has called a public health emergency, dozens of doctors, nurses, lawmakers and activists — some in surgical masks — rallied Friday on the City Hall steps to call for passage of the measure, which has awaited a City Council vote for nearly three years. Two likely mayoral contenders have also pressed the point.

The flu spike is making people more aware of the argument for sick pay, said Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values at Work, which promotes paid sick time initiatives around the country. "There's people who say, 'OK, I get it — you don't want your server coughing on your food,'" she said.

Advocates have cast paid sick time as both a workforce issue akin to parental leave and "living wage" laws, and a public health priority.

But to some business owners, paid sick leave is an impractical and unfair burden for small operations. Critics also say the timing is bad, given the choppy economy and the hardships inflicted by Superstorm Sandy.

Michael Sinesky, an owner of seven bars and restaurants around the city, was against the sick time proposal before Sandy. And after the storm shut down four of his restaurants for days or weeks, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that his insurers have yet to pay, "we're in survival mode."

"We're at the point, right now, where we cannot afford additional social initiatives," said Sinesky, whose roughly 500 employees switch shifts if they can't work, an arrangement that some restaurateurs say benefits workers because paid sick time wouldn't include tips.

Employees without sick days are more likely to go to work with a contagious illness, send an ill child to school or day care and use hospital emergency rooms for care, according to a 2010 survey by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. A 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that a lack of sick time helped spread 5 million cases of flu-like illness during the 2009 swine flu outbreak.

To be sure, many employees entitled to sick time go to work ill anyway, out of dedication or at least a desire to project it. But the work-through-it ethic is shifting somewhat amid growing awareness about spreading sickness.

"Right now, where companies' incentives lie is butting right up against this concern over people coming into the workplace, infecting others and bringing productivity of a whole company down," said John A. Challenger, CEO of employer consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Paid sick day requirements are often popular in polls, but only four places have them: San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and the state of Connecticut. The specific provisions vary.

Milwaukee voters approved a sick time requirement in 2008, but the state Legislature passed a law blocking it. Philadelphia's mayor vetoed a sick leave measure in 2011; lawmakers have since instituted a sick time requirement for businesses with city contracts. Voters rejected a paid sick day measure in Denver in 2011.

In New York, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer's proposal would require up to five paid sick days a year at businesses with at least five employees. It wouldn't include independent contractors, such as Zavala, who supports the idea nonetheless.

The idea boasts such supporters as feminist Gloria Steinem and "Sex and the City" actress Cynthia Nixon, as well as a majority of City Council members and a coalition of unions, women's groups and public health advocates. But it also faces influential opponents, including business groups, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has virtually complete control over what matters come to a vote.

Quinn, who is expected to run for mayor, said she considers paid sick leave a worthy goal but doesn't think it would be wise to implement it in a sluggish economy. Two of her likely opponents, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu, have reiterated calls for paid sick leave in light of the flu season.

While the debate plays out, Emilio Palaguachi is recovering from the flu and looking for a job. The father of four was abruptly fired without explanation earlier this month from his job at a deli after taking a day off to go to a doctor, he said. His former employer couldn't be reached by telephone.

"I needed work," Palaguachi said after Friday's City Hall rally, but "I needed to see the doctor because I'm sick."

___

Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

Read More..

Wall Street Week Ahead: Earnings, money flows to push stocks higher

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With earnings momentum on the rise, the S&P 500 seems to have few hurdles ahead as it continues to power higher, its all-time high a not-so-distant goal.

The U.S. equity benchmark closed the week at a fresh five-year high on strong housing and labor market data and a string of earnings that beat lowered expectations.

Sector indexes in transportation <.djt>, banks <.bkx> and housing <.hgx> this week hit historic or multiyear highs as well.

Michael Yoshikami, chief executive at Destination Wealth Management in Walnut Creek, California, said the key earnings to watch for next week will come from cyclical companies. United Technologies reports on Wednesday while Honeywell is due to report Friday.

"Those kind of numbers will tell you the trajectory the economy is taking," Yoshikami said.

Major technology companies also report next week, but the bar for the sector has been lowered even further.

Chipmakers like Advanced Micro Devices , which is due Tuesday, are expected to underperform as PC sales shrink. AMD shares fell more than 10 percent Friday after disappointing results from its larger competitor, Intel . Still, a chipmaker sector index <.sox> posted its highest weekly close since last April.

Following a recent underperformance, an upside surprise from Apple on Wednesday could trigger a return to the stock from many investors who had abandoned ship.

Other major companies reporting next week include Google , IBM , Johnson & Johnson and DuPont on Tuesday, Microsoft and 3M on Thursday and Procter & Gamble on Friday.

CASH POURING IN, HOUSING DATA COULD HELP

Perhaps the strongest support for equities will come from the flow of cash from fixed income funds to stocks.

The recent piling into stock funds -- $11.3 billion in the past two weeks, the most since 2000 -- indicates a riskier approach to investing from retail investors looking for yield.

"From a yield perspective, a lot of stocks still yield a great deal of money and so it is very easy to see why money is pouring into the stock market," said Stephen Massocca, managing director at Wedbush Morgan in San Francisco.

"You are just not going to see people put a lot of money to work in a 10-year Treasury that yields 1.8 percent."

Housing stocks <.hgx>, already at a 5-1/2 year high, could get a further bump next week as investors eye data expected to support the market's perception that housing is the sluggish U.S. economy's bright spot.

Home resales are expected to have risen 0.6 percent in December, data is expected to show on Tuesday. Pending home sales contracts, which lead actual sales by a month or two, hit a 2-1/2 year high in November.

The new home sales report on Friday is expected to show a 2.1 percent increase.

The federal debt ceiling negotiations, a nagging worry for investors, seemed to be stuck on the back burner after House Republicans signaled they might support a short-term extension.

Equity markets, which tumbled in 2011 after the last round of talks pushed the United States close to a default, seem not to care much this time around.

The CBOE volatility index <.vix>, a gauge of market anxiety, closed Friday at its lowest since April 2007.

"I think the market is getting somewhat desensitized from political drama given, this seems to be happening over and over," said Destination Wealth Management's Yoshikami.

"It's something to keep in mind, but I don't think it's what you want to base your investing decisions on."

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos, additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak and Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

Read More..

Letter From Washington: For Obama, Context for His 2nd Term

WASHINGTON — Here are two realities about U.S. second presidential terms: They aren’t cursed, as legend has it, and they are rarely better than first ones.

On Sunday, Barack Obama was to become the 17th U.S. president to be inaugurated for a second time, and historians offer useful context. “Obama has read the literature and understands overreach,” said Michael Beschloss, one of the more than half a dozen scholars who recently had dinner with the president. “This puts him one step ahead of most” re-elected presidents.

That sentiment contrasts with the mood of many Democrats these days. In conversations with a dozen Democratic politicians, with a few exceptions, there is a pervasive pessimism about the next several years. Almost all requested anonymity, not out of fear, they say, but to avoid giving solace to Republicans.

The political environment, they say, is as poisonous as it ever was.

The fiscal struggles won’t be settled in the next few months; more likely they’ll be prolonged through the year, crowding out most other issues, with the possible exception of immigration and conceivably gun violence legislation.

The president shows few signs of reaching out or broadening his horizon. If anything, Capitol Hill Democrats say, the inner circle is more closed. Mr. Obama, most recently at a news conference last week, deprecates the role of relationships in politics; he’s dismissive of the notion that all would be better if he would just drink whiskey with lawmakers, as Lyndon B. Johnson did. He’s right. Few will shift policy positions because of a good Scotch or bourbon. Yet his critics also are right when they point out that every successful president has forged crucial political relationships.

Some conditions are beyond a president’s control to influence. Saturation news coverage takes more of a toll in a second term. “One of the greatest threats to the modern presidency is overexposure,” said the historian Richard Norton Smith. “There will be Obama fatigue.”

Then there’s the supposed second-term curse: Johnson and the Vietnam War; Richard M. Nixon and Watergate; Bill Clinton and impeachment; George W. Bush and Hurricane Katrina.

Robert W. Merry, who has written about how presidents are evaluated, suggested “it’s almost impossible to find a president who had a second term better than his first.”

Presidents usually win re-election because they had a reasonably successful first term; that, some experts point out, distorts any comparisons, a state of affairs that became apparent with one of the earliest U.S. presidential re-elections: that of Thomas Jefferson in 1804.

“You can’t buy Louisiana every term,” Mr. Norton-Smith said. “That doesn’t mean there can’t be accomplishments.”

Ronald Reagan, in his second term, won sweeping tax changes and a historical arms-reduction treaty with the Soviet Union. Even some administrations known for conspicuous failings look better with perspective.

Franklin D. Roosevelt botched the economic recovery and tried to pack the Supreme Court in the late 1930s. He also, subtly, prepared the United States for World War II, a bigger achievement. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s party was clobbered in congressional elections, and he was embarrassed when a spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. He also sent U.S. troops to integrate the schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, a seminal moment. Mr. Clinton’s second term produced few tangible achievements, though he continued to reposition the Democratic Party.

Today, the second-term optimists among Democrats say the president is contending with a much stronger and stable economy than the one he inherited four years ago. They see a more self-assured chief executive. One outside operative contrasts a session he had with Mr. Obama four years ago with one a few weeks ago, saying the president is a different man, more confident, clearer on what he wants to do.

Mr. Obama no longer harbors illusions, these Democrats say, about Republican congressional leaders. He’s willing, even eager, for combat. Republicans, whose standing with the public continues its free fall, are one of Mr. Obama’s greatest assets.

Whatever the political limitations, historians say Mr. Obama needs to think big, starting with his second Inaugural Address.

“He has a chance to explain where America ought to be in 10 or 20 years,” said H.W. Brands of the University of Texas at Austin, who also attended the scholars’ dinner with the president. “He can rise above everyday politics and speak to history. Lincoln did it in 1865; F.D.R. in 1937. Now it’s Obama’s chance.”

Some Democrats say the president would be able to make a more compelling case if his inner circle weren’t so insular. The Team of Rivals of the early first term, when the president brought in diverse voices, has turned into the Band of Brothers, with a premium on personal loyalty. Top White House aides have let it be known that they will be making more personnel and policy decisions in the economics and foreign affairs arenas.

And while Mr. Obama may appreciate the dangers of second-term overreach, he’s quick to claim a mandate on issues, an assertion with a dubious historical resonance.

“Presidents should erase the word ‘mandate’ from their vocabulary,” Mr. Norton Smith said. “At best, it’s treacherous.”

Read More..