LONDON (AP) ? European stock markets rallied Tuesday after Spain raised more money than anticipated in a pair of short-term bond auctions and as investors awaited a raft of U.S. earnings.
While worries over Spain remain, evidenced by a big increase in the interest rate the country had to pay investors to take ?3.2 billion ($4.2 billion) of its short-term debt, markets were cheered by the news that it found more than enough interested buyers.
The amount raised was more than the ?3 billion top target initially planned, and that helped lower the yield on Spain's ten-year bonds in the markets by 0.14 of a percentage point to 5.88 percent. The benchmark IBEX stock index rose 1 percent.
Spain has become the main source of concern in Europe's debt crisis over recent weeks as investors worry over the government's ability to push through a raft of austerity measures at a time when the economy is in recession and unemployment stands at a startling 23 percent.
The yield on the country's ten-year bond has spiked above 6 percent in recent days, not far off the 7 percent rate that eventually forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal into seeking financial help from their partners in the eurozone.
Though Tuesday's auction results were encouraging, Craig Erlam, a market analyst at Alpari, said demand for longer-term debt is a closer indicator investor confidence. "The big test now comes on Thursday when they have announced a bond auction for 2 and 10 year bonds."
A surprisingly upbeat German investor survey from the ZEW institute also helped shore up markets in Europe heading into the run of U.S. earnings later, which may temporarily divert attention from Europe's debt crisis. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Coca-Cola Co. will take center stage before Wall Street's open. After the U.S. close, Intel Inc. also unveils results.
"With the U.S. earnings season in full flow, there is plenty to keep investors occupied," said Chris Beauchamp, market analyst at IG Index.
In Europe, shares rallied alongside Spain's IBEX. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 0.7 percent at 5,708 while Germany's DAX rose 1 percent at 6,690. The CAC-40 in France was 1.4 percent higher at 3,248.
The upbeat tone in European markets also helped support the euro, which was trading 0.1 percent higher at $1.3146. Earlier it had risen to $1.3170 after a surprise increase in inflation in the 17-country eurozone to 2.7 percent in the year to March reined in expectations that the European Central Bank will cut interest rates again anytime soon.
Wall Street was poised for a solid opening too, with both Dow futures and the broader S&P 500 futures up 0.3 percent.
Earlier in Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell less than 0.1 percent to close at 9,464.71 while South Korea's Kospi index slipped 0.4 percent to 1,985.30 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.2 percent to 20,562.31. Mainland Chinese shares lost ground, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index falling 0.9 percent to 2,334.99. The Shenzhen Composite Index lost 1.3 percent to 936.74.
Oil prices tracked equities higher ? benchmark oil for May delivery was up 75 cents to $103.68 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile exchange.
____
Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.
ScienceDaily (Apr. 16, 2012) ? People who feel ignored tend to engage in conspicuous consumption, whereas consumers who are rejected are more likely to volunteer or donate to a worthy cause, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
"The need to belong is considered to be universal across cultures, and in fact, cultures themselves may reflect the need to belong," write authors Jaehoon Lee (University of Houston-Clear Lake) and L.J. Shrum (University of Texas at San Antonio). "One need only look at the clothing of college students -- much of which displays affiliation through school logos and colors -- to see its magnitude."
But what happens when consumers experience social exclusion? The authors examined different types of social exclusion and consumer responses to them. "We propose that when relational needs, such as self-esteem and belonging, are primarily threatened, people attempt to fortify those needs by feeling, thinking, and behaving in a prosocial, affiliative manner, because prosocial acts such as helping other increase interpersonal attractiveness and help reconnect with society," the authors write. But when their need for control and a meaningful existence is threatened, people act out in provocative and attention-getting ways.
The authors conducted four experiments where people either felt ignored or rejected. The researchers asked people to recall actual experiences or they simulated exclusion by arranging for participants to feel left out or antagonized in online exchanges. Afterward, the participants took purportedly separate surveys on behavioral intentions and actual behavior. For conspicuous consumption, the researchers asked about preferences for brand logos. For prosocial behavior, they asked about willingness to donate money or volunteer.
"Being ignored increased preferences for clothing with conspicuous brand logos, but it had no effect on prosocial behavior," the authors write. "In contrast, being rejected increased prosocial behavior, but had no effect for clothing with conspicuous brand logos."
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Journal Reference:
Jaehoon Lee and L.J. Shrum. Conspicuous Consumption versus Charitable Behavior in Response to Social Exclusion: A Differential Needs Explanation. Journal of Consumer Research, October 2012
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Depressed moms' behavior may play role in infants' sleep problemsPublic release date: 17-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sarah Hutcheon shutcheon@srcd.org 202-289-7905 Society for Research in Child Development
Sleep problems are common in young children and can lead to difficulties in families. Several factors likely contribute to these problems, and mothers' depression has consistently been identified as one. Now a new study has found that moms with higher levels of symptoms of depression might act in ways that disturb their infants' sleep.
"This study provides insights about maternal depression's effects on nighttime parenting, and how such parenting affects infant sleep," according to Douglas M. Teti, professor of human development, psychology, and pediatrics at the Pennsylvania State University, the study's lead author.
The research was carried out at the Pennsylvania State University and is published in the journal Child Development.
In the study, mothers with higher levels of symptoms of depression and more worries about their children's sleep had children whose sleep was more disrupted. But did those symptoms of depression lead mothers to behave in ways that interfered with their babies' sleep, or did the babies' night wakings lead their moms to be more depressed (perhaps because of sleep loss)?
It's most likely the moms and their behavior that are at play, the study found. Moms with more symptoms of depression and worries behaved in ways that disrupted their infants' sleepfor example, picking up babies who were sleeping. The authors suggest that moms who worry excessively about their babies' well-being at night may respond to infant sounds that don't necessarily require response or move their babies into their own beds to alleviate their own anxieties about whether their infants are hungry, thirsty, and comfortable. Mothers who are feeling depressed also may seek out their infants at night for the moms' own emotional comfort.
Researchers studied 45 mostly White moms and their infants, who ranged in age from 1 to 24 months, in home visits across seven consecutive days. They collected information about the mothers and their symptoms of depression, asked them about their feelings about their babies' sleep, had the moms keep a daily diary of their babies' sleep behavior, and video-taped mothers with their infants on the last night.
"Although we found greater support for mothers' behavior explaining the relation between depressive symptoms and infant night wakings, it's likely that both infants and parents influence infant sleep," notes Teti. "This helps us better understand what factors influence infants' sleep in homes in which mothers are depressed.
"Sleep problems often endure beyond early childhood and can have a negative effect on various aspects of development, including emotional, behavioral, and academic functioning," continues Teti. "Understanding how maternal depression and sleep problems combine to affect children's development is important to developing interventions to help reduce these negative consequences."
###
The study was supported by a grant from the Children, Youth, and Family Consortium of the Pennsylvania State University.
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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.
Depressed moms' behavior may play role in infants' sleep problemsPublic release date: 17-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sarah Hutcheon shutcheon@srcd.org 202-289-7905 Society for Research in Child Development
Sleep problems are common in young children and can lead to difficulties in families. Several factors likely contribute to these problems, and mothers' depression has consistently been identified as one. Now a new study has found that moms with higher levels of symptoms of depression might act in ways that disturb their infants' sleep.
"This study provides insights about maternal depression's effects on nighttime parenting, and how such parenting affects infant sleep," according to Douglas M. Teti, professor of human development, psychology, and pediatrics at the Pennsylvania State University, the study's lead author.
The research was carried out at the Pennsylvania State University and is published in the journal Child Development.
In the study, mothers with higher levels of symptoms of depression and more worries about their children's sleep had children whose sleep was more disrupted. But did those symptoms of depression lead mothers to behave in ways that interfered with their babies' sleep, or did the babies' night wakings lead their moms to be more depressed (perhaps because of sleep loss)?
It's most likely the moms and their behavior that are at play, the study found. Moms with more symptoms of depression and worries behaved in ways that disrupted their infants' sleepfor example, picking up babies who were sleeping. The authors suggest that moms who worry excessively about their babies' well-being at night may respond to infant sounds that don't necessarily require response or move their babies into their own beds to alleviate their own anxieties about whether their infants are hungry, thirsty, and comfortable. Mothers who are feeling depressed also may seek out their infants at night for the moms' own emotional comfort.
Researchers studied 45 mostly White moms and their infants, who ranged in age from 1 to 24 months, in home visits across seven consecutive days. They collected information about the mothers and their symptoms of depression, asked them about their feelings about their babies' sleep, had the moms keep a daily diary of their babies' sleep behavior, and video-taped mothers with their infants on the last night.
"Although we found greater support for mothers' behavior explaining the relation between depressive symptoms and infant night wakings, it's likely that both infants and parents influence infant sleep," notes Teti. "This helps us better understand what factors influence infants' sleep in homes in which mothers are depressed.
"Sleep problems often endure beyond early childhood and can have a negative effect on various aspects of development, including emotional, behavioral, and academic functioning," continues Teti. "Understanding how maternal depression and sleep problems combine to affect children's development is important to developing interventions to help reduce these negative consequences."
###
The study was supported by a grant from the Children, Youth, and Family Consortium of the Pennsylvania State University.
[ | 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.
There's no better way to control the visual experience from shoot to show than to create the camera and the projector. That's likely the thinking behind the REDray, the 4K laser cinema projector making an appearance at the company's NAB booth today. The device supports 2D and passive 3D (up to 120fps in 3D mode), with 4K projection for each eye and has a rated laser life of over 25,000 hours. While the device itself is likely to be hidden behind glass in an elevated projector room, the REDray has the same industrial look and feel of its Scarlet and Epic capturing counterparts, with a solid matte metal construction, heavy duty bolts and dedicated access panels for the lens filter, the laser phase adjustment oscillator and the angular refraction aberration indexer. There's also a T1.8 50mm lens mounted up front, sufficiently completing the beautifully monstrous package. Also on display was the tablet-controlled REDray Player, which includes four HDMI 1.4 video outputs with 7.1-channel audio output, the ability to move 4K video to the internal hard drive and an SD reader for ingesting content. You'll also find dual gigabit Ethernet ports, along with USB and eSATA connectors.
The projector experience is much less about the hardware than it is the projections themselves, which certainly did a justice here -- especially considering the imaging device's mid-development status. During a screening of the 3D short Loom, which was shot with the RED Epic, images looked fantastic with accurate color and excellent dynamic range, allowing us to see every detail in a contrasty dark scene, where we were able to make out a very dimly lit female actress. The projection was incredibly sharp on the 24-inch foot screen, despite the film being displayed with 2K for each eye, rather than the maximum 4K. There will be two versions of the REDray projector, including a home theater flavor that supports screens up to 15 feet in size that'll ring in at under $10,000, and a professional model with support for larger venues. RED CEO Jim Jannard confirmed that the home-bound version will ship sometime this year, though he was unable to provide a more precise ship date. We weren't permitted to record video during the screening -- which is for the best, considering that there's really no way to do this thing justice -- but you can still flip through the gallery below for an early look at REDray.
We are right up on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, the most famous shipwreck in the history of Hollywood. But few realize that the Titanic wasn't the worst shipwreck in history—only the highest grossing. To commemorate the occasion—and because yesterday was Friday the 13th—here are the 13 deadliest known shipwrecks of all time. More »
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Public release date: 17-Apr-2012
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