Global shares buoyed by Alcoa earnings, dollar gains on yen

LONDON (Reuters) - World shares staged a modest recovery from two days of losses on Wednesday after aluminum giant Alcoa opened the U.S. earnings season with an optimistic outlook for world demand.

However, with European and British central banks due to hold policy meetings on Thursday, the same day Spain will test demand for its debt and China releases its latest trade data, investors were in a cautious mood.

Alcoa, the largest aluminum producer in the United States, rose 1.3 percent in after-hours trade after it reported a fourth-quarter profit in line with Wall Street expectations and revenues that beat forecasts.

The results lifted Asian stock markets and pushed Europe's FTSE Eurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> up around 0.2 percent in early trade, leaving the MSCI world equity index <.miwd00000pus> up 0.1 percent. London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> were flat to 0.2 percent higher.

U.S. stock futures were up 0.15 percent, suggesting a firmer start on Wall Street. <.l><.eu><.n/>

Corporate profits are expected to be higher than the third quarter's lackluster results, but analysts' estimates are down sharply from where they were in October.

"Expectations are quite low going into the earnings season as we saw a lot of downward guidance in the past few months. There is potential for an upside surprise to come through," said Robert Parkes, equity strategist at HSBC Securities.

SOVEREIGN DEBT TEST

In European fixed income markets German Bund prices dipped slightly as investors prepared for the government's auction of 5 billion euros' worth of new five-year bonds following successful debt sales in Austria, the Netherlands and Ireland on Tuesday.

Investors were also looking ahead to Spanish and Italian bond auctions on Thursday for the new year's first test of market appetite for peripheral euro zone debt.

The Spanish auction could also provide clues on the timing of a much anticipated request by Madrid for fresh financial aid from the ECB. [ID:nL5E9C46KK]

The dollar meanwhile climbed against the yen, moving back towards a 2-1/2 year high hit last week, on expectations of a much bolder monetary easing from the Bank of Japan at its next meeting later this month.

The U.S. currency was up 0.7 percent at 87.61 yen, above a near one-week low of 86.82 hit earlier in Tokyo.

"No one is going to want to be short yen going into the BOJ meeting," said Derek Halpenny, European head of FX research at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi.

Sources familiar with the BOJ's thinking told Reuters the central bank was likely to adopt a 2 percent inflation target at the meeting, double its current goal, and issue a statement with the government pledging to pursue bold monetary easing steps.

The BOJ will also consider easing monetary policy again this month, probably through a further increase in its 101 trillion yen ($1.2 trillion) asset buying and lending programme, the sources said.

The euro held steady against the dollar at $1.3080, with most analysts forecasting the European Central Bank will keep interest rates on hold on Thursday, though some believe rates will be cut later this year.

CHINA DEMAND EYED

Brent crude oil slipped around 0.3 percent to below $112 per barrel as the market awaited the latest trade data from China, the world's biggest energy consumer, due on Thursday.

"What we're seeing in the oil markets is the cautious sentiment playing up ahead of some key economic events this week," said Ker Chung Yang, senior investment analyst at Phillips Futures in Singapore.

However, iron ore jumped to its highest since October 2011, stretching a rally that has lifted prices by more than a third since December as China replenished stockpiles and as supply in the spot market remained limited.

Iron ore, a raw material used to make steel, has now risen 83 percent since falling to below $87 in September.

(Additional reporting by Nia Williams and Atul Prakash; Editing by Will Waterman)

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Videos of Chávez Promote Stability During Illness

Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

In Caracas on Saturday, Venezuelans showed support for President Hugo Chávez, who is in Cuba after an operation.

CARACAS, Venezuela — They run around the clock on state television, highly polished videos of President Hugo Chávez hugging children, kissing grandmothers, playing baseball and reciting poetry. As supporters around the world hold up hand-lettered signs that say, “I Am Chávez,” the president’s voice is heard in one of them shouting, “I demand absolute loyalty because I am not me, I am not an individual, I am a people!”

In reality, officials say, Mr. Chávez lies in a Cuban hospital bed, struggling through complications from cancer surgery while his country heads toward a constitutional showdown over his absence.

Mr. Chávez’s fragile health has thrown Venezuela into political uncertainty. After being re-elected in October, he is supposed to be sworn in for the start of his new term on Thursday, but the charismatic leader who has dominated every aspect of government here for 14 years may be too ill to return in time, much less continue in office for the next six years. Top government officials insist that the swearing-in is just a formality. The opposition, meanwhile, says the Constitution requires that Mr. Chávez be present or, in his absence, that a process begin that could lead to new elections.

The government’s television barrage seems intent on reassuring loyalists — and anyone who might raise questions — that Mr. Chávez is still very much the head of the nation. By keeping his image front and center, analysts say, the government can bolster its position as the caretaker of his legacy, mobilize its supporters for the battle over interpreting the Constitution and build momentum for itself in elections should Mr. Chávez die or prove too sick to govern.

“They have combined the mechanisms of left-wing struggle with the best marketing team there is,” said J. J. Rendón, a political consultant who opposes the government.

He compared the saga over Mr. Chávez’s illness to a telenovela, one of the popular Latin American soap operas, with its unexpected plot twists that keep viewers on edge. “They are always prepared for different scenarios,” he said of the government.

During past trips to Cuba for cancer treatment over the last year and a half, Mr. Chávez worked to maintain his customary visibility back home, heading televised cabinet meetings, making phone calls to government-run television programs and posting on Twitter.

But this time is different. He has not been seen or heard from since his surgery on Dec. 11.

To fill the void, the government montages combine elements of campaign ads and music videos, sometimes with the feel of a religious revival broadcast.

They are Mr. Chávez’s greatest hits, showing him on the campaign trail or in scenes from happier times during his many years in office, a nostalgic and emotionally charged way for his supporters to connect with their absent leader. Set to rock, rap or folk music, they mine parallels between Mr. Chávez and his hero, the Venezuelan independence leader Simón Bolívar, and resonate with the religious devotion with which some of his followers regard him.

In one, Mr. Chávez is seen reciting a favorite poem exalting Bolívar. Another shows glowing pictures of Mr. Chávez while choirlike voices sing, “Chávez is the triumphant commander, Chávez is pure and noble love.”

“There is a process of converting Chávez into a myth with religious roots,” said Andrés Cañizalez, a communication professor at the Andrés Bello Catholic University.

The television spots, he said, are part of “a political strategy to keep alive this idea that Chávez is not just a political leader but he’s the father of the country, he’s a patriarch, he’s a figure who protects us, who takes care of everything for us, something more than a president.”

Many of Mr. Chávez’s followers already speak of him in religious terms, as a godlike presence, and the campaign seems intended to feed those perceptions.

María Eugenia Díaz contributed reporting.

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Galaxy phones power Samsung to record $8.3 billion profit

SEOUL (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics, the world leader in mobiles and memory chips, said it likely earned a quarterly profit of $ 8.3 billion, as it sold close to 500 handsets a minute and as demand picked up for the flat screens it makes for mobile devices, including those for rival Apple Inc products.

That run of five straight record quarters may end in January-March on weaker seasonal demand, though a strong pipeline of smartphones – the South Korean group’s biggest earner – and improving chip prices have eased concerns that earnings growth could slow this year, powering Samsung shares to record levels last week.

The stock closed down 1.3 percent on Tuesday, in a Seoul market that fell 0.7 percent.

“Investors are a bit concerned that Samsung’s momentum may slow in the first half. The smartphone market is unlikely to sustain its strong growth as advanced markets are nearing saturation despite growth in emerging countries,” said Kim Sung-soo, a fund manager at LS Asset Management.

Samsung has outpaced Apple – its biggest rival and biggest customer – despite the U.S. firm’s launch of the latest iPhone 5, with sales momentum boosted by its Galaxy Note II phone-cum-tablet, or ‘phablet’, in the fourth quarter. IPhone 5 sales were a little below expectations, analysts said.

While Apple rolled out just a single new smartphone last year globally, Samsung bombarded the market with 37 variants tweaked for regional and consumer tastes, from high-end smartphones to cheaper low-end models. By comparison, Taiwan’s HTC Corp released 18 models, Nokia 9 and LG Electronics 24.

HTC on Monday said its fourth-quarter profit slumped more than 90 percent as its sales continue to trail those of the Galaxy range and the iPhone.

Samsung, valued at close to $ 230 billion, gave its October-December earnings guidance on Tuesday, ahead of the full earnings release expected by January 25.

A HIGH NOTE

Shipments of Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S III, which overtook the iPhone 4S in the third quarter to become the world’s best-selling smartphone, are likely to have slipped to around 15 million in the last quarter from 18 million in July-September, analysts estimate, but sales of around 8 million Galaxy Note II ‘phablets’ should more than make up for that – pushing overall smartphone shipments to around 63 million.

“The Note was selling well, boosting fourth-quarter profit, while iPhone 5 sales were less than expected,” said Song Myung-sub, an analyst at HI Investment & Securities.

“Samsung’s profit will drop in the current quarter because of decreased phone profits. It will launch the Galaxy S IV only in March or April so, without new models, phone sales prices will fall this quarter. For the whole year, Samsung will launch new models faster than Apple and have the upper hand in the smartphone market.”

The new Galaxy, widely expected to be released within months, may have an unbreakable screen and full high-definition quality resolution boasting 440 pixels per inch, as well as a better camera and a more powerful processor.

“Samsung’s smartphone shipments are likely to grow even in a seasonally weak first quarter. The early launch of the Galaxy S IV would drive second-quarter growth momentum,” said BNP Paribas Securities analyst Peter Yu, who predicts Samsung’s 2013 operating profit will grow 25 percent to almost $ 35 billion.

Samsung is expected to increase its smartphone sales by more than a third this year, and widen its lead over Apple as it offers a broader range of mobile devices, said Neil Mawston, executive director at market researcher Strategy Analytics, which forecasts Samsung will sell 290 million smartphones this year, up from a projected 215 million in 2012.

Kim Sung-in, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities, sees Samsung shipping 320 million smartphones this year and doubling sales of its tablets to 32 million.

STRONG NUMBERS

Samsung said its October-December operating profit jumped 89 percent to 8.8 trillion won from a year ago, just ahead of a forecast for 8.7 trillion won by 16 analysts surveyed by Reuters. That is 8.6 percent higher than its previous record of 8.1 trillion won in July-September.

Analysts expect profits from the mobile division to more than double from last year and increase slightly from the previous quarter, to around 5.8 trillion won. A recovery in chip prices and flat screens should also boost component earnings, helped by booming sales of mobiles carrying Samsung’s chips, micro-processors and flat screens.

Reflecting the strong outlook, shares in Asia’s most valuable technology stock last week hit a life high of 1.584 million won ($ 1,500). The stock gained 44 percent last year, topping Apple’s 31 percent increase and easily outpacing a 9 percent rise on the broader Korean market.

Samsung, led by founding family member and chairman Lee Kun-hee, is embroiled in a patent legal battle with Apple globally. Apple won a $ 1.05 billion verdict against Samsung in August, but has failed to win a permanent sales ban on several, mostly older Samsung models.

(Additional reporting by Joyce Lee and Narae Kim; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

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Fifty Shades of Grey Sparks Musical Theater Spoof

By Andrea Billups

01/08/2013 at 07:45 AM EST

Even with last year's runaway success, 2013 is already shaping up to be a 50 Shades of Grey kind of year.

A feature film based on the sexually charged book, which has sold 65 million copies around the world, is in the works for this year. And a musical spoof of the book, 50 Shades! The Musical, will open at New York City's Gramercy Theater on Friday, the New York Post reports.

The stage version is heavy with innuendo but scarce on nudity, unlike the book, which has drawn high praise and vicious criticism as "mommy porn" for its frank description of the bondage tinged relationship between Anastasia Steele, a student, and Christian Grey, her billionaire sexual provocateur.

The musical version is performed by Chicago's Baby Wants Candy musical comedy troupe and is slowly earning critical buzz. The show includes 11 original songs and pokes fun of the characters including the wealthy Grey portrayed with a beer gut.

The film version of the E L James book has been adapted for the big screen by British screenwriter Kelly Marcel, and leaves nothing to the imagination, she tells the Times of London, noting the movie will not be cast until after the script is complete.

Marcel says the script is so closely guarded she is keeping shredders at her Hollywood home to keep away those whom she says are going through her trash to hunt for clues.

"This isn't going to be Twilight. It's going to be raunchy." Marcel said. "We are 100 percent going there."

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Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down

WASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.

Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer.

"There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer advocacy groups.

But bad diets, lack of physical activity and obesity together wield "incredible forces against this decline in mortality," Brawley said. He warned that over the next decade, that trio could surpass tobacco as the leading cause of cancer in the U.S.

Overall, deaths from cancer began slowly dropping in the 1990s, and Monday's report shows the trend holding. Among men, cancer death rates dropped by 1.8 percent a year between 2000 and 2009, and by 1.4 percent a year among women. The drops are thanks mostly to gains against some of the leading types — lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers — because of treatment advances and better screening.

The news isn't all good. Deaths still are rising for certain cancer types including liver, pancreatic and, among men, melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.

Preventing cancer is better than treating it, but when it comes to new cases of cancer, the picture is more complicated.

Cancer incidence is dropping slightly among men, by just over half a percent a year, said the report published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Prostate, lung and colorectal cancers all saw declines.

But for women, earlier drops have leveled off, the report found. That may be due in part to breast cancer. There were decreases in new breast cancer cases about a decade ago, as many women quit using hormone therapy after menopause. Since then, overall breast cancer incidence has plateaued, and rates have increased among black women.

Another problem area: Oral and anal cancers caused by HPV, the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, are on the rise among both genders. HPV is better known for causing cervical cancer, and a protective vaccine is available. Government figures show just 32 percent of teen girls have received all three doses, fewer than in Canada, Britain and Australia. The vaccine was recommended for U.S. boys about a year ago.

Among children, overall cancer death rates are dropping by 1.8 percent a year, but incidence is continuing to increase by just over half a percent a year. Brawley said it's not clear why.

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Stock futures flat ahead of earnings season start

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures were little changed in low volume on Tuesday ahead of the unofficial start of an earnings season expected to show sluggish corporate growth.

Profits in the fourth quarter were expected to top lackluster results in the previous quarter, but analysts' current estimates are down sharply from where they were in October. Fourth-quarter earnings are expected to grow by 2.8 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.

S&P 500 futures were up 0.2 point and slightly below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures were unchanged, and Nasdaq 100 futures were also flat.

Shares of Yum Brands Inc fell 5 percent to $64.50 in light premarket trading a day after the KFC parent warned sales in China, its top market, shrank more than expected in the fourth quarter.

ConAgra Foods Inc priced a public offering of 8.1 million common shares at $29.75 per share, the foodmaker said on Monday. ConAgra closed at $30.17 during regular Monday trading.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

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IHT Rendezvous: IHT Quick Read, Jan. 7

NEWS Sounding defiant, confident and, to critics, out of touch, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria on Sunday used his first public address in six months to justify his crackdown, rally his supporters and leave recent efforts toward a political resolution of the civil war in tatters. Anne Barnard reports from Beirut.

A group of top regulators and central bankers on Sunday gave banks around the world more time to meet new rules aimed at preventing financial crises, saying they wanted to avoid the possibility of damaging the economic recovery. Jack Ewing reports.

Turmoil at a leading newspaper is posing an early challenge for the new Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, pitting pent-up demand for change against the Communist Party’s desire to maintain firm control. Ian Johnson reports from Beijing.

The French technology entrepreneur Xavier Niel has made a career of disrupting the status quo. Now his company, Free, has taken on Google and other Web companies by allowing its estimated 5.2 million Internet-access users in France to block Web advertising. Free is updating users’ software with an ad-blocking feature as the default setting. David Jolly reports from Paris.

John C. Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer, says he did not intend to harm national security, and he doesn’t think he did. But in a first, he is set to be sentenced to 30 months in prison for disclosing classified information to a reporter. Scott Shane reports from Washington.

A year after Muscovites took to the streets to protest the government and Vladimir V. Putin’s ongoing rule, the excitement that gripped many of the capital’s young professionals appears to be gone. But in its place is a deepening sense of alienation that poses its own long-term risk to the system. Ellen Barry reports from Moscow.

At first glance the willingness of Al Jazeera, the satellite network owned by Qatar, to pay some $500 million for Current TV, Al Gore’s struggling channel, seems like a vanity project. And it may turn out that way. But Qatar has developed one of the more energetic and sophisticated foreign investment strategies of the Gulf oil and gas producers. Al Jazeera’s expansion plan in the United States can be seen as part of its overall plan to put itself on the map. Stanley Reed reports from London.

A small plane carrying four Italian tourists, including the head of the Missoni fashion business, disappeared off the coast of Venezuela on Friday morning, prompting a sea and air search. Vittorio Missoni, 58, an owner of the family-run label famed for its zigzag knitwear, and his wife were aboard the plane, which was missing after takeoff from the island resort of Los Roques. Eric Wilson reports.

EDUCATION Millions of children in Indonesian elementary schools may no longer have separate science classes if the government approves a curriculum overhaul that would merge science and social studies with other classes so more time can be devoted to religious education. Sara Schonhardt reports from Jakarta.

More Western education institutions are looking to open up in Asia — and U.S. art and design schools are no exception. While the potential for growth is huge, given Asia’s rising creative industries, the actual logistics can be complicated. Kelly Wetherille reports.

ARTS The principal problem with many Web sites is that their designers were neither rigorous nor imaginative enough in planning the way we will navigate them. Alice Rawsthorn on design.

SPORTS The first weekend of the year has its own folklore in England as the time when small clubs can rise and knock the giants out of the F.A. Cup. Rob Hughes on soccer.

On Sunday morning, the long-dormant N.H.L. began stirring to life. The 113-day lockout was over, finished at 5 a.m. after a 16-hour bargaining session at a hotel in Manhattan, and across North America, the game began to awaken from its slumber. Jeff Z. Klein reports.

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‘Facebook Dead’: How to ‘Kill’ Your Friends

Rusty Foster discovered he was dead last week, at least according to Facebook. He had been locked out of his account, which had been turned into a “memorial page,” because someone had reported the Maine man as deceased to the social media site.

He tweeted Thursday, “Facebook thinks I’m dead. I’m tempted to just let it,” then “Did you know that you can report any of your Facebook friends dead & Facebook will lock them out of their account with no evidence needed?”

As one of Foster’s friends discovered, it doesn’t take much to convince Facebook that somebody is dead. By simply going to the ” Memorialization Request” page and filling out a form, including a link to an obituary, anybody can take someone else off Facebook.

The obituary needs to have the same name (or at least a close name), but doesn’t need to match any other details on the profile. The obituary Foster’s friend used to prove Foster’s death was for a man who was born in 1924 and died in 2011 in a different state than the one Foster lists on Facebook as his home state.

Foster, 36, said he never got any notification his account was going to be locked, and only discovered it when he attempted to log in. He filled out a form to report the error, and received a response that began with “We are very sorry to hear about your loss.”

More than a full day later, Foster’s account still hadn’t been unlocked. Buzzfeed, tipped off by Foster, posted an article in which one editor “killed” another editor, John Herrman, on Facebook. According to the article, about an hour after Herrman reported the error to Facebook, his profile was reactivated. About an hour after that, 27 hours after Foster first reported his erroneous death, he was “resurrected” by Facebook and allowed back into his account.

Foster does not know the total amount of time he was “Facebook dead.” He told ABC that nothing was different with his account when he logged back in, only that some of his friends had a little fun with his status.

“The only thing that happened was some of my friends posted little mock-eulogies for me, because word got around that I was locked out, due to a temporary case of death,” Foster wrote in an email with the subject line, “Rusty, the Facebook zombie.”

When pages are memorialized, they are removed from sidebars, timelines and friend suggestions and searches. This is likely to prevent people from seeing their friends who have died pop up on their newsfeed, and to prevent people from hacking into the accounts of dead people.

Foster said he understands the position Facebook is in when it comes to the death of one of its users, but believes there are better options for the social media site.

“There ought to be an email sent to the account’s email address informing it that the account has been reported dead and providing a link or something to dispute the report before any action is taken,” Foster wrote.

Foster said the most frustrating part was not being able to get into his account to “click the ‘I’m not dead’ button that should also be there.”

This has apparently been the same “memorialization” process since at least 2009, when another user took to his personal blog to write about his experience of being “Facebook dead.” In his case, the obituary his friend used to have him declared dead wasn’t even close to his real name. Instead, the man who performed the funeral services had a similar name.

In a statement to ABC News, Facebook said the system is in place in order to respect the privacy of the deceased.

“We have designed the memorialization process to be effective for grieving families and friends, while still providing precautions to protect against either erroneous or malicious efforts to memorialize the account of someone who is not deceased,” the statement reads. “We also provide an appeals process for the rare instances in which accounts are mistakenly reported or inadvertently memorialized.”

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Prince Charles Wants a Better Environment for His Grandchild

By Stephen M. Silverman

01/07/2013 at 07:40 AM EST

Prince Charles (foreground), with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

Allpix/Splash News Online

With his son and daughter-in-law the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge expecting a baby in early summer, grandfather-to-be Prince Charles says he's determined to be greener than ever – and deliver his future descendant a healthier world, not "a poison chalice."

Long a champion of environment causes, the heir to the throne, 64, told ITV’s This Morning show on Monday: "I've gone on for years about the importance of thinking about the long term in relation to environmental damage, climate change and everything else. We don't, in a sensible world, want to hand on an increasingly dysfunctional world to our grandchildren, to leave them with the real problem."

Saying "I don’t want to be confronted by my future grandchild and have them say, 'Why didn’t you do something?' " Charles went on to state, "So clearly now that we will have a grandchild, it makes it even more obvious to try and make sure we leave them something that isn't a total poisoned chalice."

Charles – recently named among the U.K.'s best-dressed gents – also spoke of his concern for son Prince Harry, 27, currently serving in Afghanistan.

"If you are a parent or relation to a loved one and that person is away in incredibly dangerous and challenging circumstances, I know you worry all the time," he said. "Certainly every night I worry. But he loves what he is doing and he's brilliant at it."

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Stock futures slip after stocks hit five-year high

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures fell on Monday, with markets expected to consolidate after the S&P 500 index closed at a five-year high on Friday.

Last week was the best for U.S. stocks in more than a year as a budget deal and economic data boosted investor confidence.

Financial shares will be in focus a day after global regulators gave banks four more years and greater flexibility to build up cash buffers, scaling back moves that aimed to help prevent another financial crisis.

By spurring credit, the easing of the bank rule may help support growth, boosting investments in equities and other risk assets.

S&P 500 futures dipped 1.3 points and were below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures fell 13 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures added 1 point.

Walt Disney Co 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.

Video-streaming service Netflix Inc said it will carry previous seasons of some popular shows produced by Time Warner's Warner Bros Television.

Major U.S. technology companies could miss estimates for fourth-quarter earnings as budget worries likely led some corporate clients to tighten their belts last month.

Amazon shares rose 2.3 percent in premarket trading after Morgan Stanley raised is rating on the stock to "overweight" from "equal weight."

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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