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Thursday, February 16, 2012
The 50% Off Criterion Sale Is Your Cinephile Deal of the Day [Dealzmodo]
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Soccer beats stocks
By RAF CASERT
Associated Press
Associated Press Sports
updated 11:17 a.m. ET Feb. 14, 2012
BRUSSELS (AP) -The furious activity in the trading pits of the world's great stock exchanges often gives the feeling that every second is gold dust in the relentless rush to make money. Then all of a sudden it's kickoff time, and everything changes.
A wide-ranging study from the European Central Bank has found that the football World Cup has a huge impact on traders. Many stock exchanges effectively go into slow motion when the games are on.
"When the national team was playing, the number of trades dropped by 45 percent, while volumes were 55 percent lower," the ECB said in a study on the 2010 World Cup in South Africa that was released on its website Monday.
"Stock markets were following developments on the soccer pitch rather than in the trading pit," it concluded.
And if trade already dropped dramatically during some games, every goal that was scored forced another brief five percent drop in activity, the ECB said in its in its 35-page report entitled "The pitch rather than the pit. Investor inattention during FIFA World Cup matches."
Traders of course are hardly alone in falling for the World Cup distractions. At global summits, government leaders briefly postpone meetings or sneak out of negotiations when their team is on the pitch. At borders, guards sometimes don't even look at passing traffic when games are on.
Researchers for the ECB could base themselves on previous scientific literature showing that human emotion runs very much through trading, from the Friday distractions ahead of a weekend to a slump in stock market returns the day after a major local team loses.
The World Cup, though, trumps just about everything else.
Held over one summer month every four years, the tournament touches people worldwide - it counts a cumulative total of tens of billions of viewers for the 64 matches and some 700 million for the final alone.
In Chile, trades per minute dropped by 83 percent when the national team was playing, and volumes were all but wiped out with a 99.5 percent drop.
Ever since the first World Cup final between Uruguay and Argentina in 1930, Latin America has been particularly obsessed with the game and in Brazil, the only five-time winner, it is considered a popular "religion."
Trade in volumes during their matches declined by 79.7 percent in Argentina and by 74.5 percent in Brazil.
"The Latin American countries show particularly large declines," the study said. Among the 15 stock exchanges tested, Latin American nations have four of the six biggest declines.
And even in the United States, where football and the World Cup only started surging in popularity after the 1994 edition there, the impact is clear. Trade dropped by 42 percent both in volume and per minute when the U.S. team was playing and by around 24 percent during the other matches.
"Investors in the U.S. markets often have an international background, which might explain the rather strong effects," the study said.
England, the cradle of the modern game and home to Europe's biggest financial center in the City of London, kept a cool head - trades per minute dropped by only 21.2 percent and volumes fell 26.5 percent when the national team played in the last edition. Perhaps traders with a keen eye for the future already knew that World Cup would turn out to be a disaster.
But Germany, so often the epitome of serious industry, had World Cup fever reaching almost South American proportions with a 59 percent drop in trades and volume.
? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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ReutersSoccer beats stocks
The world's great stock exchanges go into slow motion when World Cup games are on.
Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46379354/ns/sports-soccer/
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Karan's strong woman can borrow from the boys (AP)
NEW YORK ? Donna Karan makes every outfit she designs for a strong, confident woman, and for fall, that woman is comfortable enough in her own skin to wear heavily tailored menswear looks.
Her runway show, held Monday on Day 5 of New York Fashion Week, featured tailcoats and top hats, done on a skewed scale by milliner Stephen Jones. The opening look for her signature label was a gray-and-black pinstripe jacket with a crisp white taffeta bodysuit ? Karan's signature piece ? that was fashioned to look like a button-down shirt.
She also offered long coats with strong shoulders and lapel collars, and a riding jacket paired with pinstripe mohair pants.
Skirts and dresses were mostly long with sharp-cut knife pleats for movement. Tops were mostly slim and tailored with nothing frilly, not even when she added sparkle.
When she got to the finale, however, Karan was fully in touch with her feminine side, sending down a red-hot scarlet-colored, stretch-satin evening gown.
There was a hint of a retro 1920s gangster vibe in both the masculine and feminine silhouettes, especially the accessories including oxfords and spat booties.
"How do you define a woman?" she asked in her notes. "Someone who carries the world on her shoulder. She's never an either/or. She's always and."
Donna Karan's namesake line is her top-tier designer collection, more expensive and luxurious than her younger, contemporary DKNY label.
___
Follow AP coverage of New York Fashion Week at http://twitter.com/ap_fashion or http://www.twitter.com/carynrousseau
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Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Gearing up for data deluge from world's biggest radio telescope
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Public release date: 13-Feb-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Kirsten Gottschalk
kirsten.gottschalk@icrar.org
61-438-361-876
International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research
The amount of computer data generated by the entire world in a whole year will need to be stored in a single day for the world's most powerful telescope ? the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) ? and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) is gearing up to meet that unprecedented need.
ICRAR scientists say the $2 billion SKA will generate one exabyte of data ? a billion terabytes (or one quintillion bytes) every day while it searches the sky with the power to detect airport radars in other galaxies 50 light years away.
ICRAR? a joint venture between Curtin University and The University of Western Australia ? has signed an agreement with DataDirect Networks to develop the extraordinary new data storage capability.
ICRAR Director Peter Quinn said preparatory work for the SKA ? for which Australia/New Zealand and Southern Africa are bidding ? was "bringing together some of the world's leading minds to figure out how to solve the data deluge".
Professor Andreas Wicenec, ICRAR's head of computing, said DataDirect Networks were world leaders in the type of high-performance computing data storage required for a new era of advanced radio astronomy.
DataDirect Networks' experience would flow into storage for the SKA through work on the Australian precursor radio telescopes, the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) ? due for completion at the end of this year ? and the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) which would be ready at the end of 2013.
"Combining DataDirect Networks' expertise in providing ultra high-speed access to large amounts of data with our experience in how astronomers need to access their material gives us the opportunity to develop the best solution," he said.
Signing of the agreement followed last week's installation at UWA of a new Fornax supercomputer ? 10,000 times faster than an average office desktop computer ? to help drive ICRAR's powerful new radio telescopes.
ICRAR is also preparing to develop a low-frequency component of the SKA ? dubbed "SKA-low" ? which, unlike the SKA's high-frequency collecting "dish" antenna array, consists of new electronic antennas with no moving parts.
Professor Peter Hall, ICRAR Deputy Director responsible for engineering, said telescopes of SKA-low's design were a relatively recent development in radio astronomy.
ICRAR has just signed an agreement with scientists from organisations in Europe, India and the UK to form a collaboration for the development of SKA-low, which would form a significant part of the SKA project.
"Another benefit of our role in this collaboration is more opportunity for Australian industry to be involved in the SKA, regardless of where it is sited," Professor Hall said.
He said ICRAR was working closely with the Australasian SKA Industry Consortium to ensure Australian enterprises had maximum opportunities to tender for construction work.
An announcement on Australia's bid for the SKA ? a continent-wide Australasian project with radio telescope sites that that extend to New Zealand ? is expected to be made by the international SKA Board in London in April.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 13-Feb-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Kirsten Gottschalk
kirsten.gottschalk@icrar.org
61-438-361-876
International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research
The amount of computer data generated by the entire world in a whole year will need to be stored in a single day for the world's most powerful telescope ? the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) ? and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) is gearing up to meet that unprecedented need.
ICRAR scientists say the $2 billion SKA will generate one exabyte of data ? a billion terabytes (or one quintillion bytes) every day while it searches the sky with the power to detect airport radars in other galaxies 50 light years away.
ICRAR? a joint venture between Curtin University and The University of Western Australia ? has signed an agreement with DataDirect Networks to develop the extraordinary new data storage capability.
ICRAR Director Peter Quinn said preparatory work for the SKA ? for which Australia/New Zealand and Southern Africa are bidding ? was "bringing together some of the world's leading minds to figure out how to solve the data deluge".
Professor Andreas Wicenec, ICRAR's head of computing, said DataDirect Networks were world leaders in the type of high-performance computing data storage required for a new era of advanced radio astronomy.
DataDirect Networks' experience would flow into storage for the SKA through work on the Australian precursor radio telescopes, the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) ? due for completion at the end of this year ? and the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) which would be ready at the end of 2013.
"Combining DataDirect Networks' expertise in providing ultra high-speed access to large amounts of data with our experience in how astronomers need to access their material gives us the opportunity to develop the best solution," he said.
Signing of the agreement followed last week's installation at UWA of a new Fornax supercomputer ? 10,000 times faster than an average office desktop computer ? to help drive ICRAR's powerful new radio telescopes.
ICRAR is also preparing to develop a low-frequency component of the SKA ? dubbed "SKA-low" ? which, unlike the SKA's high-frequency collecting "dish" antenna array, consists of new electronic antennas with no moving parts.
Professor Peter Hall, ICRAR Deputy Director responsible for engineering, said telescopes of SKA-low's design were a relatively recent development in radio astronomy.
ICRAR has just signed an agreement with scientists from organisations in Europe, India and the UK to form a collaboration for the development of SKA-low, which would form a significant part of the SKA project.
"Another benefit of our role in this collaboration is more opportunity for Australian industry to be involved in the SKA, regardless of where it is sited," Professor Hall said.
He said ICRAR was working closely with the Australasian SKA Industry Consortium to ensure Australian enterprises had maximum opportunities to tender for construction work.
An announcement on Australia's bid for the SKA ? a continent-wide Australasian project with radio telescope sites that that extend to New Zealand ? is expected to be made by the international SKA Board in London in April.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/icfr-guf021312.php
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Monday, February 13, 2012
Small Business Finance: What Is Vendor Financing? ? Online ...
Small Business Finance: What Is Vendor Financing?
Every business needs financing. Vendor financing is one way to find money for small business financing.
Stretching out trade payables from, say 30 days to 60 days, is a pretty common method for companies to improve their cash flow. Usually vendors are not very happy when this happens, and some even voice their disapproval in no uncertain terms. Most businesses are small businesses and stretching out payables only hurts everyone in the long run. Think about it: if you are depending on one of your customers to pay you within 30 days, and that customer doesn?t pay for 90 days, it can significantly affect your cash flow. If it?s one of your major customers, the impact can be quite serious. You don?t have the cash to pay your bills and so a ripple effect is caused on down the line.
This suggestion is different. If you?ve established a good relationship with your vendors, sometimes it?s possible to get them to agree to finance part of your company by extending their terms for a particularly large order for an extended length of time. If you?re a new company with little or no history, you could approach vendors showing them your business plan and documentation of orders you?ve already received. If the vendor is convinced that your company will be successful, and one of their better customers in the future, they may be willing to give you a break now.
Another alternative is to guarantee the vendor that they will be your exclusive supplier for an agreed to length of time in exchange for longer credit terms. Or you can offer to pay slightly higher than market price in exchange for longer credit terms. This method can be dangerous, because it sets the precedence of a higher price. When the longer terms are no longer necessary, it may be a challenge to decrease the price you pay the vendor.
Occasionally, it?s possible to convince a vendor to exchange a trade payable owed to them for a note payable instead, or possibly an equity position in your company. If you decide to offer an equity position, document it thoroughly and have your attorney draw up whatever papers are required. Make sure you include a buyout clause in case you sell the business. If you don?t have the buyout clause any investor can forestall the sale of the business.
Vendor financing is one option for small business financing.
Dee Power writes on the subject of How to start a business She is the author of several business books and the novel ?Over Time.? The Power of Publicty, an e-book, covers How to Write a Press Release, media kits, how to reach editors and reporters and press release distribution resources.
Related Finance Ebook Articles
Source: http://onlineunsecureddebtconsolidationloans.com/small-business-finance-what-is-vendor-financing/
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Vatican besieged by leaks, conspiracies (AP)
VATICAN CITY ? Money laundering at the Vatican bank. Corruption in the awarding of Vatican contracts. Even a purported plot to kill Pope Benedict XVI.
The Vatican is being besieged by near-daily leaks of confidential documents and tabloid-style reports of alleged financial mismanagement, political infighting and gossip about who might be the next pope ? all coming out at an exceedingly delicate time for the Holy See and Benedict himself.
The frescoed halls of the Apostolic Palace have been buzzing about the leaks, which have emerged as the pontiff prepares for the ceremony next week to crown 22 new cardinals ? the princes of the church who will elect his successor.
Such ceremonies always breed unseemly speculation about a future pontiff since they provide a rare chance for cardinals new and old to size one another up. But the Feb. 18 consistory has taken on greater gravitas since the 84-year-old Benedict is showing signs of slowing down.
Conspiracy theorists reading the Italian media of late might also point to another looming date as reason for why the Vatican's dirty laundry is being aired now: In June, a European commission will decide whether the Holy See has abided by tough international anti-money laundering and anti-terror finance laws.
Compliance would mark a key step in the Vatican's goal of joining the so-called "white list" of countries that share financial information ? a designation the Vatican hopes will forever dispense with its reputation as a scandal-plagued, secrecy-obsessed tax haven.
The flurry of articles and television news programs seemingly seeking to reinforce that reputation ? regardless of whether it's deserved ? certainly can't help the Holy See's bid.
All of which explains why the Vatican has been aggressively shooting down the reports with an unprecedented array of detailed, line-by-line refutations and sarcastic jabs at the journalists reporting them in a bid to set the record straight.
Almost lost in the shuffle is that the Vatican in recent weeks has done more to come into compliance with international financial norms than perhaps at any time in its history. It has ratified three major U.N. conventions, rewritten its law on money laundering and, separately, scored a legal victory in the U.S. concerning its embattled bank, the Institute for Religious Works or IOR.
The most explosive story to hit newsstands came on Friday: reports that the Vatican had received a confidential letter last month from a top Vatican official describing how an Italian cardinal visiting China had spoken about a presumed plot to kill Benedict this year. The document also said the pontiff was grooming Milan's archbishop as his successor.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, dismissed that report as "so completely beyond reality and hardly serious that I don't even want to consider it."
But Lombardi has taken the other reports alleging financial mismanagement far more seriously, warning of possible legal action against the media outlets responsible.
Veteran Vatican correspondent Andrea Tornielli said the reports showed a clear power struggle is under way inside the Vatican, "the outcome of which is uncertain yet devastating," concerning both the fate of the pope's deputy, Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and any future conclave to elect the next pope.
Another Vatican commentator who has been highly critical of Bertone's leadership, Sandro Magister, put it this way in a recent column: "The secretary of state is increasingly alone, in a curia he does not govern and with a pope he does not help."
The question that has yet to be answered is why the reports are coming out now, and whether they are more related to internal power struggles over Bertone's leadership or external tensions between the Bank of Italy and Italian prosecutors on the one hand, and the IOR on the other. As the financial institution of a sovereign city state, the Vatican's IOR is outside the Italian central bank's regulatory grasp.
Some of the leaked documents have carried the processing stamp of the Vatican secretariat of state, implying an internal leak. Other reports have been based on information from Rome judicial authorities. Regardless, however, none of them appear to be so grave as to cause significant harm to the Holy See, particularly given that the Vatican has taken a remarkable steps in the past year to be more transparent in its financial dealings and cooperative with international requests for financial data.
The media campaign kicked off last month with the publication on television news program "The Untouchables" of leaked letters from the former No. 2 in the Vatican city state administration, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, to Benedict and Bertone in 2011. In one, Vigano begged not to be transferred after exposing what he said was corruption in the awarding of Vatican contracts.
Vigano was subsequently named the Vatican's ambassador to Washington ? a high-ranking post that was perhaps better suited to his diplomatic background but that nevertheless sealed the impression that he had been punished for stepping on too many toes in his cost-cutting efforts.
Lombardi initially issued a lengthy statement lamenting the leak but insisting that Vigano enjoyed the "undoubtable esteem and trust of the pope." A week later, Vigano's now-retired boss and the three current top officials of the Vatican city state changed course, saying Vigano's assertions were the baseless "fruit of erroneous evaluations."
Lombardi subsequently shot down an article in the leading newspaper Corriere della Sera suggesting that a monsignor with links to the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints had lost euro1.6 million by investing with a Bernard Madoff-like schemer.
Corriere identified the source of that story as Luca Tescaroli, the Rome prosecutor who has pursued a 30-year-old case concerning the worst scandal at the IOR: the death of Roberto Calvi, the Catholic banker who helped managed the Vatican's investments and was found hanging from London's Blackfriars Bridge in 1982.
Calvi headed the Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed in 1982 after the disappearance of $1.3 billion in loans made to dummy companies in Latin America. The Vatican had provided letters of credit for the loans.
Calvi was found hanging a short time later, his pockets loaded with bricks and cash. After an initial ruling of suicide, murder charges were filed against five people, including a major Mafia figure, but all were acquitted.
While denying wrongdoing, the Vatican Bank paid $250 million to Ambrosiano's creditors.
The case remains unresolved, but Tescaroli has recently revived judicial requests to the Vatican for information about it ? information the Vatican insists it has provided.
Tescaroli was the featured guest this week on "The Untouchables," which has been on a campaign of sorts against the IOR. It is hosted by Gianluigi Nuzzi, author of the 2009 book Vatican SpA about the IOR scandals that was based on a trove of leaked Vatican documents.
Separately, the IOR's president and director general remain under investigation by Rome prosecutors who allege they broke Italian law in 2010 by trying to transfer money from two IOR accounts without identifying the sender or recipient. The Vatican says the matter was the result of a misunderstanding.
Almost lost in all the noise was a victory that the Holy See scored for the IOR in the United States on Feb. 1: A federal judge in Mississippi dismissed with prejudice a fraud and racketeering lawsuit against the Holy See filed in 2002 by the insurance commissioners of five southern states alleging Vatican involvement in jailed financier Martin Frankel's scheme to buy and loot insurance companies of some $200 million.
The Vatican's lawyer called for the media to report on the "undignified" demise of the case and not just on claims of corruption.
"That inflammatory allegations against the Holy See and the IOR are easily disseminated and make good fodder for conspiracy theorists cannot be doubted," the lawyer said in a statement.
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Sunday, February 12, 2012
U. Mich.: Child porn case spurs outside review (AP)
ANN ARBOR, Mich. ? University of Michigan officials said Friday they have ordered an outside review of campus security in the wake of a botched response to child pornography found on a medical resident's computer flash drive.
An internal investigation determined a hospital attorney aware of the discovery decided after a month there wasn't enough evidence to tell police and closed the matter in June.
But the case was reopened after doctors expressed concern in the wake of the Penn State University scandal, in which former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky awaits trial on child sex-abuse charges and other leaders including late football coach Joe Paterno were pushed out.
Charges were filed in December against a resident physician. The flash drive containing child porn was found in a staff lounge.
The six-month delay was a "serious failure on the part of our institution ? there is simply no other way to describe it," U-M President Mary Sue Coleman said in a statement accompanying the audit.
"A university attorney must not assume the lead role in investigating a potential crime of this nature," Coleman said. "This is solely the responsibility of the police."
The attorney, whose name was not released, left the university in June for reasons unrelated to the case, the school said.
Coleman said in the statement that it wasn't solely the actions of that attorney, but a "significant breakdown" among numerous individuals and departments as well as "poor judgment on the part of several employees who could have done more." She commended a medical resident for twice reporting what she saw and apologized to that person for not properly investigating in May.
"It took an act of courage to come forward again, and it is because of her that the case is now moving forward in the legal system," Coleman said in the statement.
Recommendations made by the internal review panel include developing an extensive set of common guidelines for reporting security incidents, raising awareness of patient, employee and student privacy rules, and boosting understanding of the duty to report suspected criminal activity.
The university audit said outside experts will be hired by April 1 to "assess our safety and security culture and help us achieve needed change." An improvement plan will be developed within the following 60 days.
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