Stocks recover slightly, ending tough week

NEW YORK (AP) ? Strong earnings from a pair of technology giants helped the stock market recover some of its losses Friday, a positive end to Wall Street's worst week in five months.

Microsoft and Google both beat earnings expectations, yields of government bonds ticked up and copper ? a key industrial metal ? continued its fall, losing 2 percent.

Microsoft gained 3 percent to $29.77, leading the Dow Jones industrial average higher. The software giant reported earnings late Thursday that beat analysts' forecasts and showed solid results from its Office, software tools and Xbox divisions.

Google's stock climbed 3 percent to $799.87. The leader in Internet search boosted prices for ads distributed to smartphones and tablet computers.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 13.64 points to 1,555.25, an increase of 0.9 percent. The Dow rose 10.37 points to 14,547.51, a gain of 0.1 percent. The Dow spent most of the day down, pulled lower by disappointing results from IBM.

Traders, like everyone else, were following the news out of Boston, where police were hunting for one of two brothers suspected to be behind Monday's Boston Marathon bombings. One brother was killed in a gun battle with police overnight. But the news had no impact on markets, traders said.

Friday's slight gains couldn't overcome a tough week for the market, when both the S&P 500 and the Dow lost 2.1 percent. That's their biggest weekly drop since last November.

"Compared to the rest of the week, it looks like we're going to slide into the weekend on a quiet note," said Jim Baird, Partner and Chief Investment Officer for Plante Moran Financial Advisors

By many measures, the financial markets have endured a rough five days. News that economic growth had slowed in China set off a plunge in commodity prices on Monday, leading the stock market to its worst day of the year. Gold dropped below $1,400 an ounce for the first time in two years.

The stock market bounced back the next day, then fell again on Wednesday, its third worst day this year.

Most big corporations have managed to beat analysts' low expectations for first-quarter profits. Of the 104 companies that turned in results through Friday morning, 70 have trumped forecasts, according to S&P Capital IQ.

Analysts estimate that earnings for companies in the S&P 500 inched up just 2 percent over the previous year, a slowdown from the 7.7 percent rise in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Next week marks another big week for earnings as 10 members of the Dow and 181 companies in the S&P 500 report results.

On Friday, IBM fell 8 percent to an even $190. Quarterly earnings for the country's largest provider of computer services fell short of forecasts for the first time since 2005. IBM said delays in closing several large software and mainframe computer deals hindered sales.

Chipotle Mexican Grill surged 12 percent to $366.25, the best gain in the S&P 500. Chipotle's results easily topped Wall Street expectations late Thursday as the burrito-maker said new restaurants drove sales higher.

The Nasdaq composite index gained 39.69 points to 3,206.06, up 1.3 percent.

In the market for U.S. government bonds, Treasury prices slipped, nudging yields up from their lowest levels of the year. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note inched up to 1.70 percent from 1.68 percent late Thursday.

Traders cautiously returned to buying certain key commodities on Friday, including gold and oil, after big sell-offs earlier this week. But copper continued its fall, losing 2 percent to $3.16 per pound.

Rex Macey, the chief investment officer at the Wilmington Trust Investment Advisors, said markets are bound to encounter turbulence as long as the economy continues to advance at a slow pace. Forecasts say the U.S. economy will expand 2 percent this year. In practice, Macey said, that means there will be times when the economy looks ready to stall and others when it looks ready to steam ahead.

"You'll hear that Europe's in trouble again and we'll get a pullback in the market," Macey said. "Then you'll go through periods when we're off to the races again. I say, 'Get used to it.'"

Even after a rough week, Macey and others said the basic storyline for investors hasn't changed. The economy and corporate profits are still headed in the right direction. And as long as that's true, the stock market will follow their lead.

"We're going to have a stronger 2013 than 2012," said Joseph Tanious, the global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds. "But the recovery is going to be much more bumpy than people thought."

Among other companies making big moves:

? SeaWorld Entertainment soared in its first day of trading as a public company. The theme park operator raised $702 million in its initial public offering, with the bulk of the money going to the Blackstone Group, the private equity firm that still controls the company. SeaWorld's stock jumped 24 percent to $33.52, up from its IPO price of $27.

? Dell sank 4 percent to $13.40 following news that the Blackstone Group withdrew its bid to buy the computer maker. That left Dell with two remaining bidders: a group led by Michael Dell, the company's founder and CEO, and Carl Icahn, the well-known investor.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stocks-recover-slightly-ending-tough-week-211911846--finance.html

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This Guy Created an Awesome Pringles Can That Actually Makes It Easy to Get Chips

Putting your hand inside a Pringles can is like placing your hand inside quicksand or a Chinese finger trap or a snake hole, it's always uncomfortable and sometimes impossible to pull your hand out without serious injury. And the worst part is you never grab enough chips! No more. Jason Poel Smith of DIYHacksAndHowTos created a Pringles can that makes it easy to get chips. So that you can actually never stop after you pop. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/MICp_hfHiEY/this-guy-created-an-awesome-pringles-can-that-makes-it-easy-to-get-chips

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Berlin's airport project delays shame Germans

BERLIN (AP) ? Rabbits scamper over quiet runways. Only the call of a crow disturbs the silence around a gleaming, empty terminal that should be humming with the din of thousands of passengers.

Willy Brandt International Airport, named for Germany's famed Cold War leader, was supposed to have been up and running in late 2011, a sign of Berlin's transformation from Cold War confrontation line to world class capital of Europe's economic powerhouse. Instead it has become a symbol of how, even for this technological titan, things can go horribly wrong.

After four publicly announced delays, officials acknowledged the airport won't be ready by the latest target: October 2013. To spare themselves further embarrassment, officials have refused to set a new opening date.

The saga of Berlin's new airport has turned into a national joke and a source of humiliation for a people renowned for being on time. Yet it is just highest profile in a string of big-ticket projects ? including a concert hall in Hamburg, railway tunnels in Munich and Leipzig, a subway line in Cologne and a Stuttgart underground train station ? that have been plagued by huge cost overruns and delays.

The airport fiasco presents a staggering picture of incompetence.

German media have tracked down a list of tens of thousands of technical problems. Among them: Officials can't even figure out how to turn the lights off. Thousands of light bulbs illuminate the gigantic main terminal and unused parking lots around the clock, a massive energy and cost drain that appears to be the result of a computer system that's so sophisticated it's almost impossible to operate.

Every day, an empty commuter train rolls to the unfinished airport over an eight-kilometer-long (five-mile) stretch to keep the newly-laid tracks from getting rusty, another example of gross inefficiency. Meanwhile, hundreds of freshly planted trees had to be chopped down because a company delivered the wrong type of linden trees; several escalators need to be rebuilt because they were too short; and dozen of tiles were already broken before a single airport passenger ever stepped on them.

The airport itself points to problems with the fire safety system as the immediate cause of the delays: The fire safety system incorporates some 75,000 sprinklers, but computer programming glitches mean it's not clear whether all of these sprinklers would spray enough water during a fire. And the system's underground vent system, designed to suck away smoke, isn't working. Here, again, technology's getting in the way: It's so advanced that technicians can't figure out what's wrong with it.

Critics say that that the difficulties with handling today's complex technology have been compounded by hasty, negligent work due to the intense time pressures.

Underlying these problems appears to be a culture of political dishonesty.

"Many politicians want prestigious large-scale projects to be inseparably connected with their names," said Sebastian Panknin, a financial expert with the Taxpayer's Association Germany. "To get these expensive projects started, they artificially calculate down the real costs to get permission from parliament or other committees in charge."

In addition to that, politicians at the city, state and federal levels then often come with extra demands once construction is underway, which leads to expensive modifications. In the case of the Berlin airport, said Pankin, there were about 300 ad hoc change requests by politicians which created an explosion of costs and several delays ? among them a last minute wish to expand the terminal to include a shopping mall.

"The airport is a classic example of the incompetence of our politicians," said Sven Fandrich, a 28-year-old Berliner who works for an insurance company. "We've seen this happen with many big infrastructure projects in Germany. Nobody feels responsible. The politicians are more concerned about winning the next elections than devoting their service to the people."

Hamburg's concert hall was to have opened by 2010. Instead it's nowhere near complete and costs have more than doubled to 575 million euros. It's now due to open in 2016.

Construction on Cologne's North-South subway line began in 2004. After cost overruns and a collapse that killed two people in 2009, officials say the entire line may not be open for until 2019. Costs have soared from 780 million to 1.08 billion euros.

In Leipzig, the city tunnel for commuter trains was expected to open in 2009. Construction is still not finished, and costs have jumped from 572 million to 960 million euros.

Of all the bungled projects, the Berlin airport is the biggest embarrassment.

The initial plan foresaw building a stately airport that would be financed by private investors and replace the city's two Cold War airports ? Tegel in former West Berlin and Schoenefeld in what was the communist east.

After a series of disputes with private investors, the city, state and federal governments eventually took over the airport project. In 2006, costs were estimated at 2 billion euros, but after four delays, the figure spiked to 4.4 billion euros.

Companies like Air Berlin, Germany's second biggest carrier, have been severely affected by the delays and are suing for lost revenues. Small businesses like coffee shops, restaurants, retail stores or bus operators ? who had already hired staff and invested in new stores at the airport ? are facing bankruptcy.

Twitter users asked the mayor to "please open this gate," playing off President Ronald Reagan's famous 1987 appeal to Moscow to "tear down" the Berlin Wall.

And by the time the airport finally opens, it may face a new headache.

Some aviation experts are warning that by its inauguration date, the airport will already be too small to handle the rising number of passengers. The nearly 3.9 million square foot (360,000 square meter) airport complex was designed to handle 27 million passengers. But the existing two city airports handled 25 million passengers last year ? and the city keeps attracting more visitors every year.

"The airport is too expensive, too small and too much behind time," said aviation expert Dieter Faulenbach da Costa, who recently caused a stir when he proposed that the airport ought to be torn down.

In an effort to salvage the mess, Hartmut Mehdorn, the hardnosed former boss of the German railway system with a reputation for turning around failing corporations, was named chief executive of the airport in early March.

"The whole world says: it's not possible at all," Mehdorn said when he took over. "I say: It should be possible.

"I just don't know how yet."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/berlins-airport-project-delays-shame-germans-093036692--finance.html

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S. Sudan restarts oil production, ending row with Khartoum

THAR JATH, South Sudan: South Sudan restarted oil production yesterday, ending a bitter 15-month row with former civil war foe Sudan and marking a major breakthrough in relations after bloody border clashes last year.
?The oil is now flowing,? South Sudan oil minister Stephen Dhieu Dau shouted as he flicked a switch to restart production at a ceremony in the Thar Jath field in Unity state.
Sudan and South Sudan came close to a return to all-out conflict last year in bitter fighting along their un-demarcated border in April and March, a conflict prompted partly by their disputes over oil.
?This is a sign of peace,? Dau said, as crowds danced in celebration. ?No way are these sisterly countries to live without peace, and oil will play a great role to keep the peace in Sudan and South Sudan.?
South Sudan halted crude production in early 2012, cutting off most of its revenue after accusing Khartoum of theft in a row over export fees.
At talks in Addis Ababa last month, the two countries finally settled on detailed timetables to ease tensions, after months of intermittent border clashes, by resuming oil flows and implementing other key pacts.
Earlier deals had remained stalled after Khartoum pushed for guarantees that South Sudan would no longer back rebels fighting in its border areas of South Kordofan and Blue Nile.
The shutdown has cost both impoverished nations billions of dollars. China was the biggest buyer of the oil.
South Sudan won independence in July 2011 after a referendum set up under a 2005 peace agreement that ended more than two decades of bloody civil war.
At independence, South Sudan won control of roughly 75 percent of the 470,000 barrels per day of crude produced by the formerly unified country.
The separation left Khartoum without most of its export earnings and half of its fiscal revenues.
Before the shutdown, oil provided South Sudan with 98 percent of its revenue.
But while South Sudan has the bulk of the oil fields, the pipeline infrastructure all runs north through Sudan.
During the oil shutdown, South Sudan said it was exploring the possibility of building new pipelines, either to the Indian Ocean through Kenya to the south, or to the Gulf of Aden through Ethiopia and Djibouti to the east.
However, Dau said the resumption of production was ?a message of the commitment of the leadership of the government and the people of South Sudan to comply with the agreements signed with Sudan.?
It was sign of the ?commitment that the two states ... must be viable, must be prosperous, they must live together,? he added.
Oil companies in South Sudan include Malaysian state-owned Petronas, China?s National Petroleum Company, and the Sudd Petroleum Operating Company (SPOC), a joint venture between Petronas and South Sudan?s government.
?This is a very special day,? said Emi Suhardi Mohd Fadzil, president of SPOC, which operates the field around Thar Jath known as Block 5a, southeast of the Unity state capital Bentiu.
?We never doubted that this day would come, it was a matter of time, and that time has come,? he added.
Oil deals agreed between Juba and Khartoum are worth between $1 billion and $1.5 billion annually in transit fees and other payments for Sudan, an international economist has estimated.
Billions more dollars would reach South Sudan from its oil sales.
Khartoum earlier said South Sudanese oil would be shipped from Sudan by the end of May.
?Sudan and South Sudan agreed to start oil pumping in mid-April and the exportation by the end of May,? Sudan?s official SUNA news agency said late Friday.
Sudan?s undersecretary at the petroleum ministry, Awad Abdul Fatah, said that when ?all is back to normal working,? it was expected that some 250,000 to 350,000 barrels of oil a day would be pumped from South Sudan through Sudan.
Initial production rates from Thar Jath were expected to be low ? around 10,000 barrels a day ? but Dau said he hoped it would rise soon as more wells gradually came online.
?Today what is important is to resume, to start again,? he said.

Source: http://www.arabnews.com/node/447214

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British woman, 24, ?stabbed to death? on houseboat in Kashmir, India

Indian police move the body of a British woman murdered on Dal Lake in Kashmir (Picture: AFP / Getty)

A British woman has been found murdered on a houseboat in India, the British High Commission in Delhi has said.

The 24-year-old is believed to have been stabbed to death and was discovered lying in a pool of blood inside her accomodation on the Dal Lake early this morning, according to reports.

Dal Lake is a popular tourist destination (Picture: Google Maps)

A Dutch national who had been staying in a neighbouring boat has been held on suspicion of her murder.

Abdul Ghani Mir, the Inspector General of Kashmir, told NDTV in India he was arrested attempting to flee the area with only his passport.

A Dutch nation was arrested attempting to flee the Valley (Picture: Alamy / File)

?The Dutch national had fled from the houseboat in the night, leaving behind his belongings,? he said.

?He was trying to flee from the Valley, carrying only his passport. We flashed an alert for his arrest.?

A Kashmiri fisherman throws a net on Dal Lake (Picture: AFP / Getty)

The owner of the houseboat?said the woman had been staying their for the past two months and was like a ?daughter? to him.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it is looking into the reports.

A spokesman said: ?We are aware of reports of an incident involving a British national in Srinagar, Kashmir.?

William Hague: The Foreign Office is looking into the reports (Picture: Reuters)

The Dal Lake is an integral part of tourism in Kashmir and is home to a large collection of houseboat.

?While preliminary investigation has confirmed that the 24-year-old woman was murdered, we are investigating other angles,? a police source told ITV News.

?Forensic evidence is being collected.?

Source: http://metro.co.uk/2013/04/06/british-woman-24-found-murdered-dal-lake-boathouse-in-kashmir-3585427/

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6 Americans, doctor killed in Afghan attacks

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) ? Six American troops and civilians and an Afghan doctor were killed in attacks on Saturday in southern and eastern Afghanistan as the U.S. military's top officer began a weekend visit to the country, officials said.

In the south, three U.S. service members, two U.S. civilians and the doctor were killed when a suicide bomber detonated a car full of explosives just as a convoy with the international military coalition drove past another convoy of vehicles carrying the governor of Zabul province.

Another American civilian was killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said in a statement.

The attacks occurred the same day that U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in Afghanistan for a visit aimed at assessing the level of training that American troops can provide to Afghan security forces after international combat forces complete their withdrawal at the end of 2014.

Those killed in Zabul province included three members of the military and two U.S. civilians, including at least one employee with the U.S. State Department, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement. Several other Americans and Afghans, possibly as many as nine, were wounded, the official said.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul confirmed that Americans were involved in an attack in Qalat, the capital of Zabul province. Zabul is next to Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban, and shares a volatile border with Pakistan.

"There are American and Afghan casualties. We are still investigating the incident and cannot confirm details at this time," the embassy said in a statement.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attacks.

The deaths bring the number of foreign military forces killed this year to 30, including 22 Americans. A total of six foreign civilians have died in Afghanistan so far this year, according to an Associated Press count.

It was unclear if the car bomber was targeting the coalition convoy or that of Provincial Gov. Mohammad Ashraf Nasery, who was driving to an event at a nearby school in Qalat. The explosion occurred in front of a hospital.

Nasery, who survived the attack, said the car bomb exploded as his convoy was passing the hospital. He said a doctor was killed, and two of his bodyguards and a student from the school were wounded. The coalition convoy was leaving a base that is home to a provincial reconstruction team, or PRT, officials said.

"The governor's convoy was at the gate of the school," provincial police chief Gen. Ghulam Sakhi Rooghlawanay said. "At the same time the (coalition) convoy came out from the PRT and was passing by that place. The suicide bomber blew himself up between the two convoys."

Nasery said he thought his convoy was the intended target.

"I'm safe and healthy," he told The Associated Press in a telephone call. "The target was my vehicle, but I survived."

___

AP National Security writer Robert Burns contributed to this report from Kabul, Afghanistan.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/6-americans-doctor-killed-afghan-attacks-145000153.html

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Debt-free Lifestyle - Gerken Financial Coaching

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are? certain to miss the future.? ? John F. Kennedy
Back in 2008, Tim and I made the decision to cut up our credit cards, pay off our debts and live a life that most people think is weird. We were making too much money to be in debt and constantly robbing Peter to pay Paul. We were unorganized and our money was floating away without us knowing where it was going. We established a budget and made a plan. Today, we build a new budget each month and will continue to do so for the rest of our lives. We know exactly where our money goes and we are able to save for our purchases and our retirement. As we look back to our pre-budget days, we can see that?there are several behaviors that contributed to a successful change.

Contentment

We had to learn to delay gratification. We needed to learn to save for purchases rather than just buying now and paying later. It was a heard discipline to learn and it is hard to teach to our children as well. We still do this today. Contentment from stuff, however, is a lot different from contentment with a bad situation. People who live pay check to pay check, should not be content with their current situation, especially if you make a good income. By establishing a budget, many people feel as if they have gotten a raise because managed money goes further than non-managed money. If you get a tax refund and do not plan where it will be spent or saved;?have you noticed that it just floats away? Think back to your last refund. Where did it go? We do not have to keep up with society in the great marketing game. Let?s be content to delay our purchases until we can afford them.

Communication

When we first began budgeting, Tim and I had to learn to communicate over money. We have opposite learning styles and interests, but we needed to learn to find a middle ground so that we could agree how to save, spend and give. Each month Tim prepares our written budget. I give him input before he starts about unusual expenses that will be coming during the month. After the budget is prepared, I will review it and either make a few changes or agree to it. Once we are in agreement, that is how our money is spent for the month. If an unexpected event comes, we review the budget and make changes mid-month. We take money from one category and add it to another category where we may be short. Communication is the key to this process before and during the month.

A clear plan

Before we were organized, we had a fuzzy plan about our financial future. We knew that we needed to save for retirement, the kids college, and our home. We didn?t want to have car payments or a mortgage. But, we did not have a definite plan to make all of these goals into a reality. When we paid off our debt and began budgeting, we were able to see where our money was going more clearly. We were able to allocate money to our savings goals, both long term and short term. We were able to give to our church and to ministries around the world. We were finally pointed in the right direction, our money had a name and a purpose.

This was and still is a process that we choose to do every day, month and year. It is our debt-free lifestyle and we hope that our children will continue the tradition as they grow and leave the house. It is a choice that we make everyday. It give us financial security and peace.

Tim and Kathryn Gerken are Financial Coaches in Newcastle, WA. They serve their community in the greater Seattle area with personal finance coaching and budgeting to help families and individuals achieve their financial goals.

Source: http://www.gerkenfinancialcoaching.com/2013/04/debt-free-lifestyle/

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