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Saturday, June 29, 2013

Car buyers appear unfazed by stock market gyrations

Autos

Joseph Szczesny The Detroit Bureau

16 hours ago

Keith Srakocic / AP

In this Wednesday, May 8, 2013 photo, a row of new 2013 Ford Fusions is seen at an automobile dealership in Zelienople, Pa.

It seems like the recent stock market tumble, and the perception that interest rates are rising, are, at most, background noise to American car buyers.

Sales of new cars and trucks continue to move along at a steady clip during June, according to new estimates from J.D. Power & Associates and LMC Automotive. A monthly sales forecast based on direct dealer data indicates new-vehicle retail sales are showing no signs of letting up at the start of the summer selling season.

New-vehicle retail sales in June are projected to come in at 1,118,800 vehicles, which represent a Seasonally Adjusted Annualized Rate of 13.2 million units, a healthy increase of 500,000 from the May SAAR. Retail transactions are the most accurate measure of true underlying consumer demand for new vehicles.

Total light-vehicle sales in June 2013 are expected to grow by 12 percent from June 2012 to 1,380,800 units. Fleet sales in June are just 19 percent of total sales. Fleet volume for the month is projected at 262,000 units.

Adding together retail and fleet business and the overall SAAR is expected to reach 15.7 million units this month. That?s a big jump from the 14.5 million vehicles sold in 2012 ? a five-year high ? and nudges by even the most optimistic forecasts for 2013, which general had set a high of around 15.5 million sales this year.

The strong selling pace continues to be matched by strong transaction prices. Thus far in June, the average transaction price of new vehicles ? what customers actually spend when both incentives and options are included ?is $28,900, the highest figure ever for June.

While sales overall are strong, not all segments are selling at the same pace. Sales of premium vehicles account for just 11.7 percent of new-vehicle retail sales thus far in June, down from 12.9 percent in June 2012.

?Although the premium segment growth has lagged non-premium, there is some good news for the industry in that the average price of premium vehicles in June is $47,000, up almost 4 percent from June 2012,? said John Humphrey, J.D. Power senior vice president of the global automotive practice. ?New premium vehicles entering the market late this year will also help bolster sales through the second quarter of 2014.?

Among other new models due for launch are the all-new Mercedes-Benz S-Class and a trio of luxury diesels from Audi.

The underperformance of premium light-vehicle sales is largely due to the age of the models in these segments. J.D. Power calculates that the average age ? the number of months the vehicle has been in the market since it was introduced or redesigned ? of premium models sold in the second quarter of 2013 was 43 months. In comparison, the average age of non-premium models, excluding pickup trucks is only 34.5 months.

Hyundai America chief executive officer John Krafcik noted last week that competition in the auto industry is very fierce and forces manufacturers to intensify efforts to win over customers. Even the threat of higher interest rates hasn?t undermined the market?s momentum, he said.

Competition in the mid-sized segment has been particularly fierce in recent months with Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Ford, General Motors, Hyundai, Volkswagen and Kia all introducing new or substantially updated models. The compact and subcompact segment also have seen a flood of new entries.

J.D. Power expects that by the second quarter of 2014, the average age of premium products will fall to just 33 months, as new and redesigned products enter the marketplace.

LMC Automotive continues to hold the outlook for total light-vehicle sales in 2013 at 15.4 million units, but has increased its forecast for retail light-vehicle sales to 12.6 million units from 12.5 million units, as retail sales growth expands.

US stocks flip between small gains and losses

NEW YORK (AP) ? U.S. stocks are flipping from gains to losses Friday on mixed economic news.

A key measure of consumer confidence remained near its highest level in six years, but a closely watched index of business in the Chicago area had its biggest monthly drop since 2008.

"Investors don't know what to make of the news," said John Toohey, vice president of stock investment at USAA Investments. "I wouldn't be surprised to see more ups and downs."

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 53 points, or 0.4 percent, to 15,011 at 11:45 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The Standard & Poor's 500 stock index was up less than one point to 1,614.

The University of Michigan said its index of consumer sentiment dipped to 84.1 in June from 84.5 the previous month. But that was still relatively high. May's reading was the highest since July 2007.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Business Barometer sank to 51.6 from a 14-month high of 58.7 in May. That was well below the level of 55 that economists polled by FactSet were expecting.

The Dow gained 365 points over the previous three days as investors jumped back into the market following a slump last week. That's when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said that the central bank could begin scaling back on its economic stimulus program later this year.

The S&P 500 is headed for its first monthly loss since October. But the index is still on track to end June with the best first half of a year since 1998, when it gained 17.7 percent, including dividends. The index has gained 13.8 percent so far this year.

The Nasdaq composite index was up seven points, or 0.2 percent, to 3,408.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.49 percent from 2.47 percent late Thursday. Last month, the yield fell as low as 1.63 percent. Treasury yields help set borrowing costs for a range of consumer and business loans.

In commodities trading, gold gained $3.70 to $1,215 an ounce. The price of crude oil gained 44 cents to $97.47 a barrel. The dollar rose against the euro and the Japanese yen.

Among stocks making big moves:

? BlackBerry maker Research In Motion plunged $3.68, or 24 percent, to $11.36 after the company posted a surprise loss in the first quarter and warned of future losses despite releasing its make-or-break smartphones this year. The company also discontinued making new versions of its slow-selling tablet device, The Playbook.

? Accenture fell $9.04, 11.3 or percent, to $71.16. The consulting firm cut its revenue and profit outlook for its fiscal year ending in August. Revenue was hurt by lower demand in Europe as well as its communications, media and technology division.

In overseas trading, Japanese stocks rose on news that a key consumer price index stopped falling for the first time in seven months, a sign that the world's third-largest economy is making progress in its battle against deflation. The government also reported that industrial production rose 2 percent, a fourth straight monthly increase. The benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 3.5 percent.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-stocks-flip-between-small-gains-losses-161736787.html

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Game of Thrones Season 4: The Red Viper Cast!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/game-of-thrones-season-4-the-red-viper-cast/

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Source: http://rss.sciam.com/guest-blog

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Ha-Neul Kim leads US Women's Open after 1 round

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) ? Ha-Neul Kim saw friend Inbee Park after the world's top-ranked player took the lead in the morning session at the U.S. Women's Open.

Kim, with an afternoon tee time playing the major for the first time, wondered, "Wow, how did she shoot that score?"

Then Kim went out Thursday and shot one stroke better, finishing with a bogey-free, 6-under 66 to take the first-round lead at Sebonack.

Park is trying to make history by winning the first three majors of the year. For a day at least, she was upstaged by a much less-heralded fellow South Korean.

"I'm enjoying myself," Kim said through a translator. "I'm just happy to be here and to be playing in this big event. I'm not really thinking about winning or results but enjoying the moment."

Currently a member of the KLPGA Tour, Kim is a seven-time winner in South Korea. She kept giving herself short birdie putts Thursday and making them.

Kim birdied her second-to-last hole with daylight waning to claim the lead after Park held it for most of the day with her 67 in the morning session.

No player has won the first three majors in a season with at least four majors. The 2008 U.S. Women's Open champion, Park has already won five times this year, including her last two tournaments.

American Lizette Salas, Swedes Caroline Hedwall and Anna Nordqvist and South Korea's I.K. Kim shot 68.

Concerned about bad weather, tournament officials moved up the tees, and with the rain holding off, Park was able to play aggressively.

"I never had practiced from those tees, so I was a little bit shocked when I went to the tees," Park said.

Not that she was complaining.

She repeatedly set up short putts, and the way she has excelled in her short game lately, Park was headed to a low score.

"So instead of hitting like 5-irons, we were hitting 9-irons, and that was making the course much easier," she said. "I was actually able to go for some pins and give myself a lot of opportunities today. I made a lot of putts and didn't leave much out there."

Starting on No. 10, Park birdied her first hole, then started racking up pars. She made the turn at 2 under before birdies on three of her next four holes.

At 5 under, Park briefly struggled with her tee shots, needing to save par on Nos. 5 and 7. On No. 6, her 15th hole of the day, she had to lay up out of the tall grass and settled for her lone bogey.

Park got back to 5 under on the par-5 eighth with a chip shot to about 5 feet that set up a birdie putt.

Hedwall and I.K. Kim were each at 5 under with a hole left, but closed with bogeys. Nordqvist birdied her last two holes to pull into the tie for third.

The two Swedes grew up playing together.

"Certainly seeing her shooting 4 under in the morning session gave me a little bit of inspiration for the afternoon," Nordqvist said.

Salas, a 23-year-old former Southern California star, played with Park in the last group of the final round of this year's Kraft Nabisco Championship. Three strokes back starting the day, she opened with a double bogey and tumbled to 25th after shooting a 79.

She bounced back to reach a playoff at the LPGA Lotte Championship in April, losing to Suzann Pettersen for her best finish on tour.

"I'm just getting a lot more used to being in contention and really studying the leaderboard and really managing my patience," Salas said. "I think that's been key for me this week. Yes, I still get nervous on the first tee and my hands keep shaking, but I just know that if I just trust myself and trust my instincts, I can perform out here."

Chile's Paz Echeverria, a 28-year-old LPGA Tour rookie also making her U.S. Women's Open debut, and Canada's Maude-Aimee Leblanc shot 69.

Among eight players at 70 was Natalie Gulbis, who withdrew from a tournament and missed two others earlier this year because of malaria. Infected by a mosquito during the LPGA Thailand in late February, she returned for the Kraft Nabisco in early April. Gulbis hasn't finished better than 13th since, missing the cut at the LPGA Championship.

Defending champion Na Yeon Choi, second-ranked Stacy Lewis and amateurs Kyung Kim and Brooke Henderson were among 11 players at 71.

Lydia Ko, the 16-year-old New Zealand amateur who won the Canadian Open last August to become the youngest LPGA Tour winner, had a 72. Juli Inkster, playing in a record-breaking 34th U.S. Women's Open at age 53, holed a 103-yard wedge shot for eagle on the 18th to also finish at 72.

Michelle Wie opened her round with a quadruple-bogey 8 on No. 10. She was at 11 over through 14 holes before birdies on three of the last four to finish with an 80.

With Park's two major titles to start the year, South Koreans have won four straight majors. But Ha-Neul Kim was an unlikely representative to lead after the first round of this tournament.

"I was very nervous coming in, and I thought in the practice round that the course was very difficult," she said. "Before playing today I thought that even par would be a very good score for me."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/neul-kim-leads-us-womens-open-1-round-003932677.html

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Mandela: A hard act to follow for South Africans

JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? In November, just before Nelson Mandela's health began a long downward spiral, the leader of a project to build a children's hospital named after the former president briefed him on efforts to raise construction funds. Mandela, 94 years old and infirm, was exasperated by the delays. Then the reflexes of the world statesman took over.

"Well, get me a few business people. Sit them around my table here and I'll tell them why this is important," Mandela said, according to Sibongile Mkhabela, CEO of the Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital Trust. The fundraiser didn't happen, but the remark was a poignant hint of the Mandela of old, the charismatic leader who, as Mkhabela put it, "knew how to make people believe in things that were not there yet."

Today Mandela is critically ill in a Pretoria hospital, seemingly close to the end of his life. As the day approaches, whenever it comes, many South Africans are caught in an emotional reckoning. They celebrate this father figure, whose jail-time sacrifice and peacemaking role in the transition from apartheid to democracy resonated worldwide, but they face the hard road of trying to emulate his example and implement his legacy after he is gone.

"There's a part of Mandela in each of us," said Anthony Prangley, a lecturer at the Gordon Institute of Business Science, a University of Pretoria business school whose campus is in Johannesburg.

"It's important to keep that in mind because we can start to see him as someone who is not accessible, or infallible," Prangley said. "In doing so, we miss the potential to learn from his leadership."

Mandela's achievements were historic even though he admitted imperfection and sought to share credit with others. That humility left a deep impression on many who met him.

The anti-apartheid leader spent 27 years in jail, but was seemingly free of rancor on his release in 1990, steering South Africa through a delicate transition to all-race elections that propelled him to the presidency four years later. The outpouring of support for the ailing Mandela, who was taken to the hospital on June 8 for what the government said was a lung infection, attests to his ability to connect and inspire in his country, even if it is struggling to live up to his soaring vision, and around the world.

"If and when he passes from this place, one thing I think we'll all know is that his legacy is one that will linger on throughout the ages," President Obama said in Senegal before arriving in South Africa on Friday as part of an Africa tour. Obama is to meet with Mandela's relatives Saturday, though he has said he will not visit the hospital where Mandela is receiving treatment.

The United Nations has recognized July 18, Mandela's birthday, as an international day to honor themes of activism, democracy and responsibility embodied by the former leader. Organizers of events in his honor suggest participants spend 67 minutes engaged in acts of goodness on that day ? 67 corresponds to the number of years Mandela is said to have spent in public service.

"It's possible for our societies to have 'Mandelas' so long as we don't take away from ourselves the responsibilities to learn, to be better, to aspire to something bigger," said Mkhabela, the CEO. She said she worried when people put Mandela on "such a high pedestal," setting aside the need to follow his humanitarian values.

"This just sounds like another way of saying: 'We don't want to be responsible, we feel and fear in us there is a 'Mandela' that could be unleashed. It's too big a responsibility, too big a challenge,'" she said.

The business world has taken note of Mandela as a role model. He ranked fourth on a list of admired leaders, according to a global survey late last year of 1,330 chief executive officers in 68 countries. Winston Churchill, Steve Jobs and Mahatma Gandhi led the field in the survey, conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The survey said many CEOs "chose leaders who were persistent in the face of adversity ? as well as transformational leaders and leaders who did the 'right thing.'"

Prangley, the business school lecturer, said a great leader doesn't just inspire and have many followers, but also reaches out to other constituencies. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., he said, became more effective by winning over white Americans, and Mahatma Gandhi sought to unite Muslims and Hindus, even though India was partitioned. President Obama energized crowds early on but now struggles to rally people when things sour, according to Prangley, who praised Mandela's political skill.

"He understands when to push and when to bring other people to the table," he said of Mandela's skill in balancing firmness and compromise.

Prangley said he met Mandela as a student volunteer in Mozambique in the late 1990s, recalling how the former president told him and his young colleagues that it was a "wizened" group of older leaders who had led the negotiations that ended apartheid.

"In South African society, it was the older generation who began to compromise and brought change," Prangley said. "It was a message to us, as young people at that time, to kind of learn from that experience."

Mandela, though, was hardly a stuffy patriarch. He had cross-generational appeal. He wore colorful, patterned shirts when president and was known for warmth and attention to personal detail despite a somewhat regal, even stiff bearing.

Those who have worked with Mandela, a philanthropist who joined the fight against the AIDS epidemic in South Africa and other humanitarian causes, often share what they learned with colorful anecdotes about the former president, also known by his clan name, Madiba. Achmat Dangor, the former head of the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory, a Johannesburg-based foundation, picked up tips about the stubborn art of fundraising.

"I've been on occasions with heads of state and certain great persons somewhere who made a pledge, and Madiba called me and said, 'You sit here until they give you something in writing, you don't leave,'" Dangor told a foundation audience in May. "'Thank you, Prime Minister. Your Excellency, thank you.' And yes, I didn't leave without a note. A million pounds came a couple of years later, but it came."

Mandela also stressed the importance of getting opposing sides to speak to each other, said Dangor, who described how he and a colleague once approached Mandela to discuss dialogue initiatives.

Dangor recalled: "He listened very carefully and then he said, 'Listen I want to tell you something. You know, when you get people together who agree with each other, and they're friends, that's not dialogue. That's a chat. Bring together those who disagree with each other.'"

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mandela-hard-act-south-africans-092813717.html

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Using computer models to predict more effective therapies for colon tumors

June 27, 2013 ? Scientist at Charit? -- Universit?tsmedizin Berlin have used a computer simulation for predicting the effectiveness of various combination therapies for colon tumors. The study has been published in the current issue of the professional journal Molecular Systems Biology.

In most tumors, the communication between the individual cells is disturbed and the cells permanently receive growth and survival signals. For this reason, drugs are increasingly used in modern tumor therapy that targets those molecules to shut down these faulty signals. Hitherto, however, it has been difficult to predict the success of such a therapy, since the signal molecules are integrated into an extremely complex cellular network, which, moreover, reacts differently for each patient, depending on the mutations the tumor bears.

The research group headed by Nils Bl?thgen, Charit? Institute of Pathology, has now examined how the interconnection of such a cellular network affects the effectiveness of a therapy. For this purpose, the scientists created computer models to simulate the networks of various colon cancer cells. The models were adapted to quantitative data from cell culture experiments. When analyzing their computer simulations, the researchers discovered that the cellular tumor networks exhibited strong feedback characteristics. This means that the cutting off of a particular signal molecule activates a receptor, which, in turn, then switches on signal paths that favor the survival of the tumor cell. In a further step, the computer model predicted a combination therapy using two drugs, which prevents the activation of survival signals, so making for a more effective therapy. The scientists have tested these predictions on various cell models. "The remarkable thing is that the combination of two therapies is effective with a large number of different mutations, including the mutant oncogene KRAS. This is a gene, which is of key importance for the regulation of growth and differentiation processes, and for which no targeted therapy has been possible up to now," stated Nils Bl?thgen. "However, it is still too early to say whether this behavior detected in the cell culture model can be applied to patients. Here, further investigations are necessary."

This approach undertaken by the researchers to combine computer models with quantitative data to simulate the behavior of networks is called system biology. It is considered a promising method of examining therapies and diagnostics for complex diseases. "Particularly when investigating the effect of inhibitors in complex networks, it is hardly possible to predict the network's response without the use of computer models," according to Bl?thgen.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/computers_math/information_technology/~3/187J8XWjS2k/130627083158.htm

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