Wall Street flat, investors look for new catalyst

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were flat on Tuesday as investors looked for new reasons in economic data or earnings to extend a rally that pushed major averages near five-year highs.

Equities have been on a tear lately, with the S&P 500 recently climbing for eight straight sessions, extending its rise in January to 5.1 percent. The index hovered around 1,500, suggesting there was still support for a market that has been hovering around five-year highs.

"A move like this in one month is extraordinary, and keeping the gains going will depend on concrete news like earnings and data that show the economy is getting better," said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia. "We haven't seen enough of that to make people jump in after the rally we've had."

The gains have largely come on a strong start to earnings season, though results were mixed on Tuesday with Pfizer Inc rising but Ford Motor Co dropping after its report.

Both companies reported profits that topped expectations, but Ford also forecast a wider loss in its European segment. Shares dropped 3.6 percent to $13.32 as one of the biggest percentage losers on the S&P 500.

Pfizer, a Dow component, rose 1.2 percent to $27.16 after its results while Eli Lilly and Co rose 1.2 percent to $53.25 after reporting adjusted fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that beat expectations.

In economic news, stocks retreated slightly after data showed U.S. consumer confidence dropped to its lowest level in more than a year in January. Americans were more pessimistic about the economic outlook and their financial prospects, according to the Conference Board.

In addition, home prices rose 0.6 percent in November, as expected, according to the S&P Case/Shiller Home Price Index. The news comes a day after data showed an unexpected drop in December pending home sales.

Thomson Reuters data showed that of the 150 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings so far, 67.3 percent have beaten analysts' expectations, which is a higher proportion than over the past four quarters and above the average since 1994.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 13.40 points, or 0.10 percent, at 13,895.33. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 1.01 points, or 0.07 percent, at 1,499.17. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 18.21 points, or 0.58 percent, at 3,136.09.

The Nasdaq was pressured by a pair of disappointing tech outlooks. Seagate Technology Plc forecast third-quarter revenue below expectations while BMC Software Inc gave a 2013 profit view that was below forecasts.

Seagate shares slumped 8.7 percent to $34.10 while BMC fell 7.8 percent to $41.

On the upside in technology, Yahoo Inc rose 1.2 percent to $20.55 a day after forecasting a rise in annual revenue.

The Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee is due to hold two days of meetings on interest rates beginning on Tuesday.

In a sign of an improved view towards equities, investors poured $55 billion in new cash into stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in January, the biggest monthly inflow on record, research provider TrimTabs Investment Research said.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)

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Before Dawn, Funerals Begin for Victims of Brazil Nightclub Fire

SANTA MARIA, Brazil — The first funerals began before dawn on Monday for the more than 230 people killed after a fire ignited by a flare from a band’s pyrotechnics spectacle swept through a nightclub filled with hundreds of university students early Sunday in this city in southern Brazil.

The disaster in Santa Maria, a city of about 260,000 residents that is known for its cluster of universities, ranked as one of the deadliest nightclub fires. President Dilma Rousseff left a summit meeting in Chile to meet with survivors, and the government declared three days of mourning.

The circumstances surrounding the blaze, including reports that guards briefly blocked the exit, immediately raised questions about whether the club’s owners had been negligent and whether enforcement of safety measures was lacking. The police were questioning several band members and club owners.

Officials revised the toll downward overnight, according to news agency reports, to 231 from 233 — most killed by smoke inhalation — while 82 were hospitalized, at least 30 in serious condition.

“The smoke spread very quickly,” Aline Santos Silva, 29, a survivor, said in comments to the television network Globo News. “Those who were closest to the stage where the band was playing had the most difficulty getting out.”

Witnesses said the fire started about 2 a.m. after the band, Gurizada Fandangueira, began performing at the club, Kiss, for an audience made up mostly of students in the agronomy and veterinary medicine programs at a local university. Murilo de Toledo Tiecher, 26, a medical student at the University of Caxias do Sul who was at the club, said the band’s singer lighted a kind of flare and held it over his ahead, accidentally setting the ceiling on fire.

The band’s guitarist, Rodrigo Martins, told Brazilian radio that the band had played about five songs when he saw that the ceiling was on fire, according to The Associated Press. “A guard passed us a fire extinguisher,” he was quoted as saying. “The singer tried to use it, but it wasn’t working.”

He confirmed that the band’s accordion player, Danilo Jacques, 28, died, but he said five other members made it out safely.

With panic spreading, people stampeded to the exit, only to find it blocked by security guards, according to witnesses and fire officials. While it was not clear why patrons were initially not allowed to escape, it is common across Brazil for nightclubs and bars to have customers pay their entire tab upon leaving, instead of on a per-drink basis.

Survivors described a frenzied and violent rush for the main exit. Mr. Tiecher said he and his friends had to push through a crush of people to get around a metal barrier that was preventing the crowd from spilling out into the street. He said some people became trapped after they rushed into the bathroom near the exit, thinking it was a way out. Once he was outside, he said, he tried to pull others to safety.

“If we saw a hand or a head, we’d start pulling the person out by the hair,” he said in a telephone interview. “People were burned; some didn’t even have clothes.”

He said the guards initially thought that a fight had broken out inside, and that customers would use the opportunity to leave without paying their bar tabs. Only after they realized that a fire was raging inside did the security guards let the crowd go, Mr. Tiecher said.

Fire officials said they had trouble getting into the club because of the pileup of bodies at the entrance, according to news reports. Valdeci Oliveira, a local legislator, told reporters that he saw piles of bodies in the nightclub’s bathrooms. Health workers hauled bodies from the club to hospitals in Santa Maria all through Sunday morning. Some of the survivors were taken to the nearby city of Porto Alegre to be treated for burns.

The disaster recalls the 2003 blaze in Rhode Island that killed 100 people, one in 2004 in Buenos Aires in which 194 were killed, and a fire at a club in China in 2000 in which 309 people died.

Preventable disasters commonly claim lives in Brazil, as illustrated by Rio de Janeiro’s building collapses, manhole explosions and trolley mishaps. However, the nation’s civil service has grown significantly over the past decade, tax revenues are soaring and there is no shortage of laws and regulations governing the minutiae of companies large and small.

“Bureaucracy and corruption also cause tragedies,” said André Barcinski, a columnist for Folha de São Paulo, one of Brazil’s largest newspapers.

Brazilian television stations broadcast images of trucks carrying corpses to hospitals where family members were gathering. Photographs taken shortly after the blaze and posted on the Web sites of local news organizations showed frantic scenes in which people on the street outside the nightclub pulled bodies from the charred debris.

Parents and other family members wandered through Santa Maria on Sunday searching for their loved ones. “I still think she hasn’t died,” Cibela Focco, 35, whose daughter was in the nightclub and still had not been heard from, told reporters Sunday evening.

The tragedy took place in a region of Brazil where Ms. Rousseff spent much of her early political career before rising to national prominence as a top aide to former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and running for president herself. Before leaving the meeting in Chile, she appeared distraught, crying in front of reporters as she absorbed details of the blaze.

“This is a tragedy,” she said, “for all of us.”

Jill Langlois contributed reporting from São Paulo, Brazil, and Michael Schwirtz from New York.

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3 Bite-Size Tips for Using Twitter in a Job Search

Advice abounds on how to use social media to advance your career and job search. Beyond reading the volumes of great books, breaking down advice into manageable bites is a smart way to venture into the often-rough social networking waters. Also, choosing one site and really getting your feet wet is helpful to prevent social media overwhelm and scattershot behavior. The following are three snack-size tips to help you get started using the niche-networking site, Twitter.

Tip No. 1: Create a Twitter handle that articulates your value. This may simply mean using your name, particularly if your personal brand and unique value are highly connected to your name. So, @JaneDDoe may just be the perfect draw to brand you. However, if your brand is better exuded through a descriptive representation of what you do, whom you serve, how you serve, and so forth, then consider drawing a visual word picture. The challenge: Creating this handle to represent your brand in just a 15-character limit. But you can meet that challenge. It just takes thought and brainstorming.

Check out these eight examples of personally branded, value-focused and/or descriptive Twitter handles to get your juices flowing:

1. Showing your unique value: @WorkIntegrity (A career transition consultant with integrity)

2. Showing what you do: @bizshrink (A leadership psychologist who grows psychologically savvy leaders)

3. Describing how you help others: @AuntieStress (She undresses your stress by getting to the heart of the cause)

4. Using your name brand: @lizadonnelly (A New York-based cartoonist and writer)

5. Creating a hybrid handle: @RedBaronUSA (A turnaround management and growth strategy expert who uses a company name, RedBaron, and first name, Baron, in the handle)

6. Describing what you do while concurrently using your company name: @Brainzooming (Strategy, innovation, creativity, and social media ideas)

7. Incorporating your name brand plus credential (niche area of focus): @tracystewartcpa (A CPA PFS CFF CFP CDFA, collaborative neutral financial advisor)

8. Emphasizing your personal brand tagline: @ValueIntoWords (A certified master resume writer translating value into words. @Glassdoor career and workplace expert)

Tip No. 2: Follow a couple dozen people and begin sharing their content. This can start as simply as researching four or five of your favorite colleagues on Twitter and then following them. Tag along a few of the people they follow. Read through their tweets. Select a resonating tweet and share it using the “retweet” button. Or, better yet, create a personal introduction to the tweet and customize your share.

You can do this by copying/pasting the original tweet into a new tweet window and then typing in additional, value-add language to introduce the tweet. This will test your writing precision and editing skills because you likely will need to trim the original tweet (without changing the meaning), and have to create a brief, three- or four-word value-add remark, all while fitting into the 140-character limitations.

The following is an example of a tailored retweet of a blog post where the poster pulled out the takeaway message that she found most compelling.

Example of original tweet: “4 tips for better negotiations http://www.stumbleupon.com/to/s/73xwDS”

Example of tailored retweet: “‘Watch where you set your anchor’ + 3 more tips for better negotiations: http://bit.ly/VtqfOr by @twilli2861″

Tip No. 3. Tweet your own content. Once you get the hang of tweeting, consider developing your own original tweets. If you author a blog or guest post on other blogs, then it would be natural to share that content. If this isn’t the case, then create 140-character tips that apply to your area of expertise. So, for example, if you are a sales professional, you may want to prepare a sales tip to help your followers sell better, or you could share one thing not to do when trying to close a deal. In other words, consider what’s in it for the follower before composing a tweet, then offer practical advice they can immediately implement.

While Twitter can be a noisy playground with lots of equipment with which to experiment; e.g., TweetDeck, HootSuite, hashtags, Twitter chats, and such, don’t let that bog you down. Instead, target in on one area of that playground and start swinging. Let your legs fly, throw your head back. At the same time, play safely and courteously. You will find yourself exhilarated and playful, at the same time, growing your career muscle in communication and collaboration.

Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter is a Glassdoor career and workplace expert, chief career writer and partner with CareerTrend, and is one of only 28 Master Resume Writers (MRW) globally. Jacqui and her husband, “Sailor Rob,” host a lively careers-focused blog at http://careertrend.net/blog. Jacqui is a power Twitter user (@ValueIntoWords), listed on several “Best People to Follow” lists for job seekers.

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Tom Brady & Gisele Bündchen's New Home Has a Moat

01/28/2013 at 12:00 PM EST

Home is where the heart is. Not to mention the moat!

It will soon be moving day for New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and his supermodel wife Gisele Bündchen, whose new $20 million Los Angeles home is finally finished after three years of construction.

That's apparently how long it takes to build a home of 22,000 square feet, a resort-style swimming pool in the back yard, a castle-like custom play area for the kids, a moat that runs across the front of the house and a bridge over it.

The abode, which sits on an $11 million lot in the Brentwood area of L.A., also includes eight bedrooms, a six-car garage, a wine cellar and a state-of-the-art gym, according to the U.K.'s Daily Mail.

"We are excited to be using solar power as the main source of electricity in our home," Bündchen told PEOPLE of the home, which she says will also have eco-friendly water supply and heating and cooling systems. "And we are planting our own herbs, fruits and vegetables, which will be my favorite part of the house."

Brady, 34, and Bündchen, 31, purchased the property in 2008 before they married in February of 2009.

They have two kids together – Benjamin, 3, and baby Vivian, who was born Dec. 5 – plus Brady's son from a previous marriage, 5-year-old John.

Better get to baby-proofing that moat!

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Wounded soldier gets double-arm transplant in Md.

BALTIMORE (AP) — A soldier who lost all four limbs in a roadside bomb attack in 2009 in Iraq has received a double-arm transplant in Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Hospital officials said Monday.

Surgeons who treated the unidentified infantryman plan to discuss the transplant Tuesday at a news conference with the soldier. The soldier is one of seven in the U.S. who have undergone successful double-arm transplants, the hospital said.

The transplant last month is the first for the hospital and involved an innovative treatment to prevent rejection of the new limbs. The treatment used the dead donor's bone marrow cells and so far has prevented rejection and reduced the need for anti-rejection drugs. Those drugs can cause complications, including infection and organ damage, hospital officials said.

The novel treatment to help prevent rejection was pioneered by Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, plastic surgery chief at Johns Hopkins, when he previously worked at the University of Pittsburgh.

In his previous job, Lee led five single-hand transplant operations on five patients, giving them new hands plus marrow from their donors. In an interview last fall, Lee said that all five recipients had done well and that four were taking only one anti-rejection drug instead of combination treatments most transplant patients receive.

Minimizing anti-rejection drugs is important because they have side effects and raise the risk of cancer over the long term. Those risks have limited the willingness of surgeons and patients to do more hand, arm and even face transplants. Unlike a life-saving heart or liver transplant, limb transplants are aimed at improving quality of life, not extending it.

Quality of life is a key concern for people missing arms and hands — prosthetics for those limbs are not as advanced as those for feet and legs.

Lee has received funding for his work from AFIRM, the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, a cooperative research network of top hospitals and universities around the country that the government formed about five years ago. With government money, he and several other plastic surgeons around the country are preparing to do more face transplants, possibly using the new minimal immune suppression approach.

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Wall Street flat after rally, Caterpillar advances

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were flat on Monday, with investors reluctant to make big bets following an extended equity rally, though strong data and results from Caterpillar kept a positive tone in markets.

The S&P 500 is coming off a streak of eight sessions of gains, the longest winning streak for the index in eight years. On Friday, it closed above 1,500 for the first time in more than five years.

Caterpillar Inc rose 1.8 percent to $97.24 after the Dow component reported adjusted fourth-quarter earnings that beat expectations, though revenue was slightly below forecasts. The heavy machinery maker also said it expects China's economy to improve, though not at the rates of 2010 and 2011.

The results continued the trend of major firms posting strong quarters, contributing to major averages rising for four straight weeks.

"You can't find more of a global bellwether than Cat, and people are pleased with the number, which suggests there could be less concern about slowing growth in China after this," said Wayne Kaufman, chief market analyst at John Thomas Financial in New York.

Thomson Reuters data through Friday showed that of the 147 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings so far, 68 percent exceeded expectations. Since 1994, 62 percent of companies have topped expectations, while the average over the past four quarters stands at 65 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 18.07 points, or 0.13 percent, at 13,914.05. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 0.07 points, or 0.00 percent, at 1,502.89. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 7.25 points, or 0.23 percent, at 3,156.97.

The S&P 500 on Friday closed at its highest since December 10, 2007, and the Dow ended at its highest since October 31, 2007. Over the past four weeks, the S&P has jumped 7.2 percent, suggesting markets may be vulnerable to a pullback if news disappoints.

Durable goods jumped 4.6 percent in December, a pace that far outstripped expectations for a rise of 1.8 percent.

"We continue to have a parade of better-than-expected economic reports. All-in-all it's a good picture. I think there's a good chance we've reached a point of recognition where people don't think the economy will crater," Kaufman said.

In addition to earnings, equities have also risen on an agreement in Washington to extend the government's borrowing power. On Monday, Fitch Ratings said that agreement removed the near-term risk to the country's 'AAA' rating.

Previously, the agency said the lack of an agreement would prompt a review of the sovereign rating.

In company news, Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Inc said a late-stage trial of its experimental kidney disease drug met the main study goal of reducing phosphate levels in blood, sending shares up 43 percent to $4.91.

Bargain hunters may look to Apple Inc in the first session after the tech giant lost its coveted title as the largest U.S. company by market capitalization to Exxon Mobil Corp . Apple rose 0.7 percent to $443.06.

On Friday, Apple's market cap fell to $413 billion, down roughly $250 billion from its September peak. Apple's fall is about equal to the entire value of Google Inc .

"Apple is pretty attractive right now, so you may see an opportunity here," said Chris Bertelsen, who helps oversee $1.5 billion as chief investment officer of Global Financial Private Capital in Sarasota, Florida. "Those who think the stock is dead have made a big mistake."

(Editing by W Simon, Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)

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The Lede Blog: Fire at a Nightclub in Southern Brazil

Victims of the fire are attended by medics.

An intense fire ripped through a nightclub crowded with university students in southern Brazil early on Sunday morning, leaving behind a scene of horror with bodies piled in the club’s bathrooms and outside on the street.

At least 245 people were killed, police officials said.

As my colleague, Simon Romero reports, a flare from a live band’s pyrotechnic show ignited the fire in the nightclub, called Kiss, in the southern city of Santa Maria. Throughout the morning on Sunday, rescue workers hauled bodies from the still smoldering building.

One video posted to YouTube showed several bodies of apparently unconscious victims splayed on concrete outside of the club as medics check them for signs of life.

Shortly before the fire, a club D.J. posted a photo on Facebook from inside the crowded club with the caption: “Kiss is pumping.”

A short time later, another photo purportedly taken inside the club and widely disseminated through social media showed smoke billowing on the crowded dance floor.

BOATE KISS PEGANDO FOGO! http://t.co/tdV2DO4q

— Boatos SM ® #LUTO (@BoatoSM) 27 Jan 13

The fire quickly engulfed the building.

Firefighters, apparently joined by volunteers who shielded their faces with T-shirts, struggled to pull people from the burning building.

Firefighters and volunteers tried to pull people from the burning building

Photos from the scene showed frantic friends and family members gathered outside the club and the hospital.

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Another look at RIM’s BlackBerry Z10 smartphone

Research in Motion (RIMM) is scheduled to announce the new BlackBerry 10 operating system and its latest flagship smartphone a press event on January 30th. The BlackBerry Z10 is rumored to come with 4.2-inch HD display, 1.5GHz dual-core processor and an 8-megapixel rear camera. The smartphone is also said to include 2GB of RAM, 4G LTE connectivity, NFC, 16GB of internal storage and an 1,800 mAh removable battery. The not-so-secret device has already appeared in a number of leaked images and videos, and on Thursday it was the subject of yet another leak from Evleaks, which posted two images that it said were press photos of the upcoming handset.

[More from BGR: Unlocking your smartphone will be illegal starting next week]

[More from BGR: Why the iOS-Android feud is so intense: It’s about core philosophy more than products]

BGR exclusively reported that the BlackBerry Z10 will priced under the standard $ 199 and could be offered for $ 149 or less with a two-year agreement. The latest rumors suggest that the smartphone could launch at the end of February.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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Go Inside Jason & Molly Mesnick's Baby Shower

With pops of yellow and mint green, the former Bachelor star and his wife throw a stylish affair for family and friends

Credit: Lisi Wolf Photography

Updated: Thursday Jan 24, 2013 | 06:00 AM EST
By: Shanelle Rein-Olowokere

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CDC: Flu seems to level off except in the West

New government figures show that flu cases seem to be leveling off nationwide. Flu activity is declining in most regions although still rising in the West.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says hospitalizations and deaths spiked again last week, especially among the elderly. The CDC says quick treatment with antiviral medicines is important, in particular for the very young or old. The season's first flu case resistant to treatment with Tamiflu was reported Friday.

Eight more children have died from the flu, bringing this season's total pediatric deaths to 37. About 100 children die in an average flu season.

There is still vaccine available although it may be hard to find. The CDC has a website that can help.

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CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

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