1. Google introduces image-based text translation on Android phones – Google introduced Thursday a new feature for the Goggle Goggles app for Android phones that allows you to point your phone at a word or phrase and get an instant text translation from English, French, Italian, German and Spanish to many more languages. Source:Translate Real World With Google
2. Endometrial stem cells could repair brain cells damaged by Parkinson’s disease – Stem cells derived from the endometrium (uterine lining) and transplanted into the brains of laboratory mice with Parkinson’s disease appear to restore functioning of brain cells damaged by the disease, according to a new study by Yale School of Medicine researchers. Source: PhysOrg.com
3. One in eight to cut cable and satellite TV in 2010 – Yankee Group has uncovered a new category of consumer: the coax-cutter — those who cut off their pay TV services and use their PCs, gaming consoles and other connected devices to access video programming instead. One in 8 consumers are set to join their ranks in the next 12 months. Source: Yankee Group
“Your Financial Choices” airs on WDIY Wednesday evenings, from 6-7 p.m. The show is hosted by Valley National’s Laurie Siebert CPA, CFP®. This week, Host Laurie Siebert, CPA, CFP® will be joined by guest, Rod Young, CPA, CFP and financial advisor with Valley National Financial Advisors to continue their discussion on 401k plans and additionally, ROTH conversions. When does a ROTH conversion make sense?
Laurie will take your calls on this subject and other financial planning topics at 610-758-8810. WDIY is broadcast on FM 88.1 for reception in most of the Lehigh Valley; and, it is broadcast on FM 93.9 in the Easton/Phillipsburg area; and, it is broadcast on FM 93.7 in the Fogelsville/Macungie area – or listen to it online from anywhere on the internet. For more information, including how to listen to the show online, check the show’s website www.yourfinancialchoices.com and visit www.wdiy.org.
Imagine if Rip Van Winkle had slept for 20 years and woke up (riding beside me as I drove through the Lincoln Tunnel to Manhattan as I did on Saturday). He would have seen one of those brilliant, electronic billboards which read, “DROIDS HAVE APPS !”.How would I have ever begun to explain that?
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange May 7, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton
SINCE NOTHING IMPROVES A BAD MOOD like spreading it around, this latest global outburst of negativity should ultimately make you feel better.
After months spent fretting about jobs, the hiring of 290,000 new workers in April — the best in four years! — couldn’t stop the slide of a stock market unsettled by Europe’s fiscal deterioration, China’s slowing growth and their combined drag on the U.S. economy. The flight from risk sent U.S. stocks down 6.4% last week, wiped out all 2010’s gains and, for a few minutes Thursday, set off a freefall that slashed a record 998.50 points off the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
The selling jag was quickly blamed on technical glitches, but the speed and ease with which the market fell apart won’t be forgotten quite as speedily or easily. The ensuing panic, however, helped wipe out some of the market’s recently excessive optimism — the first steps toward finding a short-term bottom.
Consider: Fear of sovereign defaults sent traders to hedge their exposure to financial firms, and a Bespoke Investment Group index tracking the risk of bank default jumped 25%. The lunge at safety drove 10-year Treasury yields toward 3.4%, down sharply from 4% a month ago, while gold climbed to a 2010 high. Thursday’s selling gave the Nasdaq its busiest session, and the New York Stock Exchange its second busiest. Investors rushing to buy protection in the option market traded more than 30.8 million contracts Thursday, besting the record set during the 2008 credit crisis.
How drastic was the mood swing? On April 15, bulls chasing the rally bought 1.85 calls for every put at the International Securities Exchange, a 52-week high. By Friday, that call-to-put ratio was plumbing a 52-week low of 0.59. Money managers were so unnerved by immediate risk they bid up premiums of one-month options on the Standard & Poor’s 500 above that for one-year options. This rare inversion may persist for a while before stocks rebound, but it’s often a first sign of capitulation, says one Wall Street analyst.
In a rare reversal, blue chips outgunned their smaller, riskier peers, even as the Dow suffered its worst start to May ever. It ended the week down 628, or 5.7%, to 10380. The S&P 500 index has pulled back 8.7% from its April 23 high, but is still 64% above its 2009 low. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 196, or 8%, to 2266, while the Russell 2000 fell 64, or 8.9%, to 653.
Investors are nudging the odds of risky tail events like sovereign-debt defaults from “possible” to “probable,” says one well known strategist. “But are not equities more attractive now as tail events are discounted?” (Source: Barrons Online).
U.S. Stocks and Foreign stocks declined but Bonds rose. During the last 12 months, STOCKS have substantially outperformed bonds.
The Numbers
Returns through 5-07-2010 1-week Y-T-D 1-Year 3-Years 5-Years 10-Years
Bonds- BarCap
Aggregate Index 0.5 3.3 8.7 6.5 5.5 6.6
US Stocks-
Standard & Poor’s 500 -6.3 0.3 25.0 – 7.7 1.0 -0.7
Foreign Stocks-
MS EAFE Developed
Countries -10.3 -12.0 11.7 -15.1 -1.3 -1.7
Source: Morningstar Workstation. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. Three, five and ten year returns are annualized. Assumes dividends are not reinvested.
STOCKS SUFFERED THEIR worst loss in three months even as new evidence makes overwhelmingly clear that the U.S. economy is healing and the worst recession in generations is well over.
It isn’t just that the economy grew 3.2% from January to March, and has expanded for three straight quarters, or that consumer spending jumped 3.6% and employers are hiring again. Companies as varied as Caterpillar (ticker: CAT), DuPont (DD), Whirlpool (WHR), UPS (UPS) and Visa (V) all told investors to expect stronger profits, and even Health Management Associates (HMA) said things are looking up for the ailing hospital industry.
The failure of good news to goad stocks to fresh highs marks a rare departure for a market that has rallied relentlessly for 12 of the last 14 months. There are even welcome signs, quite scarce lately, that our appetite for risk hasn’t become bottomless. Chip stocks fell last week, copper prices pulled back 5%, and a federal criminal probe of Goldman Sachs’ (GS) trading practices beat back bank and brokerage stocks. For the first time in a long time, selling accelerated during Friday’s final hour — a sign traders were paring their risk heading into a busy weekend featuring a horse race in Kentucky, a congregation of Warren Buffett fetishists in Omaha, and a [euro ]45 billion plan to contain Greece’s fiscal mess.
How stocks react this week to the anticipated bailout of Greece will offer a glimpse of the market’s mood. Bulls can take heart in the knowledge that selling hasn’t spurred more selling of late, and stocks haven’t fallen hard for two straight sessions in a while.
The nervous flight from Europe also steered investors toward U.S. debt, pushing the yield on benchmark 10-year treasuries below 3.7% and alleviating, momentarily, recent fears about rising interest rates.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the week down 196 to 11009, and the 1.8% loss was its worst since late January. The Nasdaq Composite Index snapped an eight-week winning streak and closed down 69, or 2.7%, to 2461, while the Russell 2000 skidded 25, or 3.4%, to 717.
Despite the weak finish, stocks ended April with broad gains totaling 1.4% for the Dow, 1.5% for the S&P 500, 2.6% for the NASDAQ and 5.6% for the Russell. But dry powder in money-market mutual funds shrank to $2.87 trillion from nearly $4 trillion in early 2009, just before this bull run began.
In the coming weeks, buyers’ resolve might be tested by lingering unemployment and a wobbly real-estate market propped up by government incentives and artificially low mortgage rates. Last week, the Federal Reserve upgraded its assessment of economic prospects but promised to hold borrowing costs down for — all together now — “an extended period.” And as long as savers are rewarded with near-zero interest rates and risk takers protected by bailouts, all the money in the markets will need some place to go, and stocks will remain as good a bet as any (Source: Barrons Online).
My Pittsburgh teams – the Steelers, The Penguins and the lowly Pirates. I follow all three. Each spring I get my hopes up that some of the Pirates recently promoted AAA players will come up to the Bigs and become an instant star. It did not take long to dash my hopes this year. Some of the Pirates losses look more like an NFL score: 17 – 3 and 20 – 0 which both occurred in the same series against the Brewers. Well, at least I still have my PENS who have a good chance to make it to the Stanley Cup finals again this year.
“Your Financial Choices” airs on WDIY Wednesday evenings, from 6-7 p.m. The show is hosted by Valley National’s Laurie Siebert CPA, CFP®. This week, Your Financial Choices, 6 to 7 pm: Host Laurie Siebert, CPA, CFP® be joined by guest, Rod Young, CPA, CFP and financial advisor with Valley National Financial Advisors for a discussion on 401k plans. What do you need to know about your 401k before you take that job, while you have the job and when you leave the job?
Tune in on Wednesdays at 6 on WDIY 88.1 FM (93.7 FM WEST, 93.9 FM EAST) or online at www.wdiy.org
1. Heart operation performed with robotic arm – The world’s first heart operation to use a remote-controlled robotic arm has been carried out at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester, U.K. The technique, designed to cure irregular heartbeats, involved using a Remote Catheter Manipulation System (RCMS) to steer catheters into blood vessels at the top of the groin and into the heart. The procedure, which can take over six hours, is currently carried out by surgeons who risk being exposed to radiation during surgery. (Source: The Engineer Photo Credit: University of Leicester)
2. Stanford study first to analyze individual’s genome for risk of diseases, responses to treatment- For the first time, researchers have used a healthy person’s complete genome sequence to predict his risk for dozens of diseases and how he will respond to several common medications. The risk analysis, from the Stanford University School of Medicine, also incorporates more-traditional information such as a patient’s age and gender and other clinical measurements. The resulting, easy-to-use, cumulative risk report will likely catapult the use of such data out of the lab and into the waiting room of average physicians within the next decade, say the scientists (Source: EurekAlert!)
3. New Way To Guide A Car: With Your Eyes, Not Hands – German researchers have developed a new technology, “eyeDriver,” that lets drivers steer cars going 31 mph (50 kph) using only their eyes. (Source: NPR)
