Stocks slip; Dell, Smucker drop

Stock indexes opened lower on Wall Street Friday. Dell, the personal computer maker, and J.M. Smucker, a food maker, fell after their earnings reports disappointed investors.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 61 points at 12,480 as of 10:05 a.m. EST. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was down five points at 1,348.73. The Nasdaq composite was down 14 points 2,823.

Dell fell 65 cents to $8.90 after saying that its revenue may fall as much as 13 percent in the fourth quarter. Dell is suffering as consumers switch away from PCs to less expensive smartphones and tablets. J.M. Smucker fell $3.26 to $82.12 after its sales forecast for the company's fiscal year disappointed investors.

Investors will also watch for any developments regarding the “fiscal cliff,” as President Obama heads into budget negotiations with congressional leaders Friday.

Stocks have fallen steadily since voters returned President Barack Obama and a divided Congress to power Nov. 6, with the Dow losing 5 percent since election day. Investors are worried that U.S. leaders may not reach a deal before tax increases and government spending cuts take effect Jan. 1. The impact would total $700 billion for 2013 and could send the country back into recession.

The Dow is heading for its fourth straight weekly loss, while the S&P 500 is on track for its third losing week out of the last four.

Superstorm Sandy depressed U.S. industrial output in October, while production of machinery and equipment declined sharply, reflecting a more cautious outlook among businesses, according to a Federal Reserve report.

The Fed says industrial output fell 0.4 percent last month, after a 0.2 percent gain in September. Excluding the storm's impact, production at the nation's factories, mines and utilities would have been up about 0.6 percent.

Among other stocks making big moves:

— Gap, the San Francisco-based clothing retailer, jumped 42 cents to $33.69 after raising its revenue outlook for the year Thursday. The company also said its net income jumped in the third quarter, beating Wall Street expectations.

— Schiff Nutrition International Inc., a nutritional supplement company, jumped $9.83 to $43.75 after U.K.-based Reckitt Benckiser Group offered to pay $42 a share in cash to buy the company.

— Ruckus Wireless Inc., a maker of wireless networking equipment, dropped $1.14 to $13.89 on its first day of trading. That's a decline of 8 percent.

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Israel attack on Gaza: Familiar tension, new circumstances

JERUSALEM — Israel's surprise air assault on Gaza Strip militants killed the top military commander of Hamas and set the rivals on a familiar course that could end with another major confrontation — but in unpredictable new circumstances created by the "Arab Spring."

Compared with its past campaigns against Hamas, Israel is likely to find itself more restrained politically and militarily in the new landscape.

Rather than being able to count on former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to help isolate Hamas, as he did during a 22-day operation four years ago, Israel must weigh whether another large-scale Gaza offensive would endanger the landmark 1979 peace accord with Egypt, which has long served as a cornerstone of regional stability.

By Wednesday evening, Egypt's new Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, announced he was recalling the country's ambassador to Israel to protest the assault on the Palestinian territory.

"It's a completely new game for Israel," said Yoram Meital, an Egypt expert at the Herzog Center for Middle East Studies and Diplomacy at Ben-Gurion University. "The equation before was between Israel and the Palestinians. Now it's a triangle, involving Egypt too."

Israel's offensive four years ago killed 1,200 Palestinians, but Mubarak brushed aside his own people's support for besieged Gazans and helped Israel seal Gaza's border.

The course of Israel's military campaign could be shaped by Morsi's decisions, analysts say.

Unlike his deposed predecessor, Morsi will find it difficult to ignore the anti-Israel mood of the Egyptian street. Israel is worried Egypt might open the Rafah border crossing to humanitarian aid or even Islamic fighters to help Gazans, Meital said.

"Israel is taking a very bold risk here because if this campaign continues, it could be gambling with the relationship with Egypt," he said.

Both Hamas, which has been emboldened by the new Egyptian government, and Israel, which has clashed repeatedly with it, will be watching closely to see whether Morsi comes out more strongly against Israel in the coming days or adopts a more pragmatic approach, perhaps trying to broker a cease-fire.

Besides public sentiment, Morsi must take into account his relationship with the United States and other world powers. He is seeking billions of dollars in aid and investment from the West to help the Egyptian economy. Some analysts say that even though Morsi will have to respond to be a credible Arab leader, Egyptians are more concerned with domestic problems.

Egyptian tribal leaders have blamed Hamas and other Palestinian groups for aiding the resurgence of deadly militant networks in the Sinai peninsula, who have attacked Egyptian government forces there.

Although he recalled his ambassador, Morsi did not immediately comment in public. But other leaders in the Muslim Brotherhood organization said the country would not tolerate another Israeli campaign in Gaza.

"The brutal aggression on Gaza proves that Israel has not yet learned that Egypt has changed," said Saad Katatni, head of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party.

Israeli military officials said the assault could last several days. The campaign is aimed at "defending the people of Israel who have been under rocket attack and crippling terrorist organizations' capabilities," said Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovitz.

Tension between Israel and Gaza militants has been mounting for nearly a week, following a missile attack against an Israeli jeep along the Gaza border that left four soldiers wounded.

In the ensuring back-and-forth violence, Hamas and other militant groups fired more than 120 rockets and mortar rounds into southern Israel, injuring several Israeli civilians and damaging property.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced growing pressure to move aggressively to stop the attacks, which have terrified nearly 1 million southern Israelis and crippled daily activities.

Over the last year, Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, has resumed a more hostile stance toward Israel, betting that Morsi's election would strengthen its hand.

After observing a self-imposed cease-fire for most of the last four years, militants in recent months increased their attacks on Israel, using new types of weaponry acquired in Libya last year after the chaotic fall of Moammar Kadafi, such as antitank and antiaircraft missiles.

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2 more books coming from 'Gone Girl' author

NEW YORK (AP) — "Gone Girl" novelist Gillian Flynn is sticking around.

The million-selling author has agreed to write two more books for Random House Inc. The publisher announced Thursday that she will write a novel and a young adult novel. The books currently are untitled and publication dates have not been set.

"Gone Girl" has been among the top sellers of 2012, with sales approaching 2 million copies. Flynn's previous works include "Sharp Objects" and "Dark Places."

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Hospital Death in Ireland Renews Fight Over Abortion

DUBLIN — The death of a woman who was reportedly denied a potentially lifesaving abortion even while she was having a miscarriage has revived debate over Ireland’s almost total ban on abortions.

The woman, Savita Halappanavar, 31, a dentist who lived near Galway, was 17 weeks pregnant when she sought treatment at University Hospital Galway on Oct. 21, complaining of severe back pain.

Dr. Halappanavar was informed by senior hospital physicians that she was having a miscarriage and that her fetus had no chance of survival. However, despite repeated pleas for an abortion, she was told that it would be illegal while the fetus’s heart was still beating, her husband, Praveen Halappanavar, said.

It was not until Oct. 24 that the heartbeat ceased and the remains of the fetus were surgically removed. But Dr. Halappanavar contracted a bacterial blood disease, septicemia. She was admitted to intensive care but never recovered, dying on Oct. 28.

Mr. Halappanavar, in an interview with The Irish Times from his home in India, said his wife was told after one request, “This is a Catholic country.”

Two investigations into the case have been announced, and politicians have been quick to express their condolences and to call for legal clarity. Kathleen Lynch, a junior health minister, said medical professionals needed guidelines to deal with such circumstances.

In a statement, the hospital said it would cooperate fully with any inquest but that it had not started its own review because it wanted to consult the woman’s family first.

Mr. Halappanavar told the newspaper that he still could not believe his wife was dead. “I was with her those four days in intensive care,” he said. “They kept telling me: ‘She’s young. She’ll get over it.’ But things never changed; they only got worse. She was so full of life. She loved kids.

“It was all in their hands, and they just let her go. How can you let a young woman go to save a baby who will die anyway?”

But Mr. Halappanavar said he saw no use in being angry. “I’ve lost her,” he said. “I am talking about this because it shouldn’t happen to anyone else.”

Medical professionals were less forgiving. During a miscarriage, the cervix is opened, exposing the woman to infection, and the longer the miscarriage persists, the greater the risk, said a prominent medical commentator here, Dr. Muiris Houston. While Dr. Halappanavar’s death was “on the rare end of the spectrum,” and the facts surrounding the case are not all known, Dr. Houston said, she “undoubtedly needed to go to theater,” meaning to surgery.

“If she had gone to theater earlier she might still have died, but perhaps not,” he said. “Medicine is now increasingly driven by guidelines, and the question must be, ‘Did the hospital have protocols in place when a woman presented with such a condition?’ ”

The legal issues are, if anything, more clouded. In 1992, the Irish Supreme Court ruled that abortion was permissible in cases where there was a “real and substantial risk” to the life of a pregnant woman — including the possibility of suicide. But 20 years later, the Irish government has still not passed a law to this effect.

In 2010, the European Court of Human Rights found that Ireland was in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights by failing to provide an accessible and effective procedure to ascertain whether a woman qualified for a legal abortion.

In response, the current coalition government commissioned a report from an expert group on the issue. It was initially expected in July, but was then postponed until September — a deadline also missed. Given the divisiveness of the abortion issue in Ireland, which has prompted two bitterly fought referendums, successive governments have avoided passing any legislation.

The report was eventually delivered Tuesday night, hours before news broke of Dr. Halappanavar’s death. The government warned people not to link the two, but inevitably the death has led to calls for urgent reform.

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United Airlines has another large computer outage

Thousands of United Airlines passengers around the globe are stranded at airports and on planes after another computer outage at the world's largest carrier.

This is at least the third major computer outage for the Chicago-based airline since June.

“Does anyone have a Radio Shack computer or abacus to help United get their system fixed?,” tweeted Lewis Franck, a motorsports writer who was flying from Newark, N.J. to Miami Thursday to cover the last race of the NASCAR season.

In a subsequent phone call with The Associated Press, Franck added: “Why is there a total system failure on a beautiful day? What happened to the backup and the backup to backup?”

United Continental Holdings Inc. spokesman Charles Hobart said the airline was aware of a computer issue affecting some of its flights and was working to resolve it.

Passengers are being told by pilots and airport agents that computers are down and they don't know when the system will come back. Some fliers have been waiting nearly 2 hours to depart.

Judd Shapiro of Nashua, N.H. said he got to the gate at Logan Airport in Boston and agents told him and other frustrated fliers that planes could land but not take off.

“JetBlue is taking off, American is taking off, but United is on the ground,” he said. “I was having a flawless airport experience until I got to the gate.”

United has been struggling with technology problems since March, when it switched to a passenger information computer system that was previously used by Continental. United and Continental merged in 2010. That system, called “Shares,” has needed extensive reworking since March to make it easier for workers to use.

Michael Silverstein, who works in finance, was supposed to be on a 6:01 a.m. flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco. The computer outage had already caused him to miss one meeting and he was worried about missing another. So he walked off the plane and bought a $195 last-second ticket on a Southwest Airlines flight to Oakland, Calif.

“I'm frustrated because I'm missing a meeting that I thought I had plenty of time for,” Silverstein said.

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Pelosi decides to remain as House Democratic leader

WASHINGTON -- Nancy Pelosi, the liberal San Francisco congresswoman who became the first woman speaker of the House, will seek to remain the Democratic leader in the next Congress.

Pelosi made the announcement Wednesday to a packed meeting of her caucus.

"They say a picture is worth a million words. Well this picture is worth millions of aspirations of the American people," Pelosi told the gathering, according to a Democratic leadership aide in attendance at the closed meeting. "This new class makes our caucus historic. The first time in legislative history that a caucus will be a majority of women and minorities."

"The message is clear from the American people. They want us to work together to get things done. And that's what these folks are here to do. Just like all of you.

"We may not have the gavel, but as I can see in this room, we have the unity," Pelosi said, according to the leadership aide, who asked for anonymity to discuss the private meeting.

PHOTOS: Reactions to Obama's victory

Pelosi had been mum about her plans after Democrats failed to win the majority in Tuesday’s election.

A champion campaign fundraiser, Pelosi is regarded as a polarizing figure. Elected to the House in 1987, she was chosen by the Democratic rank and file in 2002 to succeed Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri as minority leader, becoming the first woman to head a party in either chamber of Congress, as well as the first top party leader in the House from California.

In 2007, she became speaker — and the first Californian to head the House — overseeing passage of the most far-reaching healthcare overhaul since the creation of Medicare, an economic stimulus program, and the revamping of financial regulations, often with little or no Republican support.  But while she — and her Democratic majority — ruled the House, she became a favorite Republican campaign target as evidence of what's wrong with Washington. In 2010, she ran again for minority leader after Democrats lost control of the chamber, but has stayed around in hopes of leading her party back to the majority.

Republicans welcomed the prospect of continuing to have Pelosi as a target.

"There is no better person to preside over the most liberal House Democratic Caucus in history than the woman who is solely responsible for relegating it to a prolonged minority status," said Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for the House GOP campaign arm. "This decision signals that House Democrats have absolutely no interest in regaining the trust and confidence of the American people who took the speaker’s gavel away from Nancy Pelosi in the first place."

PHOTOS: America goes to the polls

Follow Politics Now on Twitter and Facebook

richard.simon@latimes.com

Twitter: @richardsimon11

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Facebook stock up as lock-up expires on largest block of shares

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Shares of Facebook Inc jumped 10 percent in early trading on Wednesday, even as the biggest block of shares held by insiders became eligible for sale for the first time since the social media company’s disappointing debut in May.

In heavy morning trading, Facebook gained $ 2.02 to $ 21.89.

“While the lock-up is expiring, there is nothing requiring anybody to sell,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer at Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, New York. “Given the low price, these long-term holders are deciding to hold the stock and that is lifting it here as the fear of the expiration subsides.”

Roughly 800 million Facebook shares could begin trading on Wednesday after restrictions on insider selling were lifted on the biggest block of shares since the May initial public offering.

The lock-up expiration greatly expanded the 921 million-share “float” available for trading on the market until now.

Facebook, the world’s No. 1 online social network, became the only U.S. company to debut with a market value of more than $ 100 billion. But its value has dropped nearly 50 percent since the IPO on concerns about its long-term money-making prospects.

Insider trading lock-up provisions started to expire in August, and the rolling expirations have added to the pressure on Facebook’s stock.

Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser said he didn’t expect Facebook insiders to sell all of their shares as the lock-ups expired.

“I would expect heavy volumes over the next few weeks, but not undigestible volumes,” said Wieser. By his estimates, roughly 486 million of the nearly 800 million newly freed Facebook shares will be sold.

There is some evidence that the heavy interest in shorting the stock was dissipating, given the poor performance since it first sold shares in May.

According to Markit’s Data Explorers, about 28 percent of the shares available for short-selling were being borrowed for that purpose, down from a high of more than 80 percent in early August.

Similarly, SunGard’s Astec Analytics, which also tracks interest in shorting, noted in a comment on Tuesday that the cost of borrowing Facebook shares is down more than 50 percent since the beginning of the month.

“Everything would seem to indicate the market is losing its appetite to short Facebook,” wrote Karl Loomes, market analyst at Astec.

Several members of Facebook’s senior management have sold millions of dollars worth of shares in recent weeks through pre-arranged stock trading plans as lock-up restrictions expired.

Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg has sold roughly 530 million shares this month, netting just over $ 11 million, though she still owns roughly 20 million vested shares in Facebook.

In August, Facebook board member Peter Thiel sold roughly $ 400 million worth of Facebook stock, the majority of his stake, when an earlier phase of lock-up restrictions expired.

Facebook’s 28-year-old chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has committed to not sell any shares before September 2013.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Dave Matthews Band pledges $1M for Sandy relief

NEW YORK (AP) — The Dave Matthews Band is giving $1 million to help Superstorm Sandy recovery efforts.

The band announced Wednesday that the Nov. 30 opening show of its winter tour at the IZOD Center in East Rutherford, N.J., will be a benefit concert. All ticket and merchandise sales will go to the Bama Works Sandy Relief Fund, established at the Community Foundation of New Jersey.

Sandy's assault more than two weeks ago created widespread damage and power outages in New Jersey and New York.

The Grammy-winning group will wrap up its tour Dec. 22 in Philadelphia. Tickets are still on sale for the Nov. 30 show, which features Jimmy Cliff.

___

Online:

http://davematthewsband.com/

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Lance Armstrong Cuts Officials Ties With His Livestrong Charity

In the wake of being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles for doping, Lance Armstrong last week cut all official ties with Livestrong, the charity he founded 15 years ago while he was treated for testicular cancer.

On Nov. 4, he resigned from the organization’s board of directors; he had previously stepped down as the chairman of the board Oct. 17. He has distanced himself from the charity to try to protect it from any damage caused by his doping controversy, the new board chairman, Jeff Garvey, said in a statement.

“Lance Armstrong was instrumental in changing the way the world views people affected by cancer,” Garvey said. “His devotion to serving survivors is unparalleled, and for 15 years, he committed himself to that cause with all his heart.”

Garvey said that the Armstrong family had donated nearly $7 million to the foundation and that the organization under Armstrong had raised close to $500 million to serve cancer survivors.

Last month, the United States Anti-Doping Agency made public its evidence in its doping case against Armstrong, saying he had doped and encouraged his teammates to dope so they could help him win races. He was subsequently barred from Olympic sports for life and was stripped of all the cycling titles he won from August 1998 on.

Since then, Armstrong has spent several weeks in Hawaii, out of the public eye. On Saturday, though, he posted a photograph on Twitter showing him at home in Austin, Tex. He is lounging on a couch with his seven yellow Tour jerseys framed on the wall in the background.

In the post, he said, “Back in Austin and just layin’ around.” The photograph had more than 400,000 page views as of Monday evening, with many people posting negative comments on the page.

“Lance, you have no moral conscious and it’s obvious many of your followers don’t either,” said one person who went by the Twitter handle “irobot,” who also posted that Armstrong needed “professional help.”

A person posting under the name “Aumann” said: “An art thief enjoying all his da Vincis.”

Other people posted words of support, including many who said they still thought Armstrong was the top cyclist in history.

“TomShelton” said of Armstrong’s seven Tour titles, “You earned all 7 of them no matter what is being said about you!”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 13, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated Jeff Garvey’s estimate of the sum the Livestrong charity had raised to serve cancer survivors. It was close to $500 million, not close to $300 million.

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Stocks mixed after gloomy retail report

Stock indexes were mixed in early trading on Wall Street Wednesday. Strong earnings from Abercrombie & Fitch were offset by a gloomy prognosis on retail spending from the government.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down seven points at 12,751 after the first 40 minutes of trading. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was up 1 point at 1,375 and the Nasdaq composite was up 9 points at 2,892.

Abercrombie & Fitch, the purveyor of apparel to teenagers, was among the standout stocks. Abercrombie jumped $9 to $40.22 after reporting that its international business was thriving and that its net income soared 40 percent in the most recent quarter, more than analysts were expecting.

The strong results from Abercrombie were tempered by a report from the Commerce Department saying that Americans cut back on spending in October, suggesting that many are still cautious about the economy.

Sales dropped 0.3 percent last month after three months of gains. That's worse than analysts had been expecting, according to FactSet. The government also said auto sales fell 1.5 percent, the most in more than a year. Sales may have been hurt by Superstorm Sandy.

Investors will be closely watching a press briefing later Wednesday by President Barack Obama.

Stocks were roiled in the immediate aftermath of last week's presidential election on concern that the U.S. will fall over the “fiscal cliff.” Unless lawmakers hammer out a deal to cut the budget deficit by Jan. 1, a series of tax increases and revenue cuts will be implemented that will likely push the U.S. back into recession.

Market participants are also awaiting the publication of the minutes from the Federal Reserve's October meeting on Thursday for more insight into how the U.S. economy is developing. The notes are scheduled to be released at 2 p.m. Eastern.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury notes ros to 1.62 percent from 1.59 percent.

Among other stocks making big moves:

Cisco Systems, the world's largest maker of computer networking equipment, gained $1.27 to $18.10. Cisco said late Tuesday that its earnings rose 18 percent in the latest quarter and that U.S. companies are starting to spend again.

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