Sunday, March 6, 2011
Best rare-bird photo
Lava spews 65 feet h
After historic gains
After historic gains, are stocks nearing a bubble? - Yahoo! News
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke fielded the usual questions about inflation, tax cuts and government debt during a trip to Congress last week. Then a new question popped up: Is the Fed creating another bubble in stock prices?
Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee he saw "little evidence" that was happening. But he cautioned: "Of course, nobody can know for sure."
That's the problem with bubbles. You only know you're in one when it pops.
This week is the second anniversary of the bull market that followed the financial meltdown. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is in its fastest climb since 1955, doubling since the market bottomed on March 9, 2009. In January and February alone, it's up 5.5 percent, the best start to a year since 1998.
Stock bubbles are famously hard to define. In 1999, for instance, investors thought it was perfectly rational to pay 62 times a company's earnings per share for a technology stock because it seemed dot-com companies couldn't lose. They only realized their error when many of those companies turned out to be nothing more than slick marketing ploys.
After two bubbles in the past 10 years — tech stocks and real estate — investors are suspicious of consistent gains that seem too good to be true. Some worry that the Fed's dramatic measures to pump up the economy mean the market's gains are an illusion. But a range of measurements suggest the market isn't in the midst of a bubble now. Instead, the stock market may simply be back to normal.
"The last two years were the great giveaway," says Stephen Lieber, the chief investment officer responsible for $6 billion in assets at Alpine Mutual Funds. Stocks had fallen so low during the panic that anyone who bought stocks on March 9, 2009, received a once-in-a-lifetime deal, he says. Caterpillar Inc., for instance, closed below $24 that day. It's now above $100.
While stock prices are much higher than they were two years ago, Bob Doll, market strategist for asset-management giant BlackRock, says investors aren't irrationally optimistic.
"Bubbles occur when there are high valuations, evidence of lots of borrowing to lever up to buy something," he says. "When I look around the landscape I have a hard time finding anything that looks like that."
One sign of a bubble would be if stocks rose far beyond what's normal by historical standards, says Bill Stone, chief investment strategist at PNC Asset Management Group. By that measure, it's not happening yet. According to Stone's research, since 1928, the average bull market runs almost five years and gains 164 percent. By comparison, this bull market has barely hit middle age.
The fundamentals of the stock market don't suggest a bubble, either. The S&P 500 index now trades at 17.4 times the earnings of its stocks over the past year. In March 1999, during the tech bubble, the multiple was 30.6.
Corporations are expected to make record profits this year and have enough cash — $2 trillion — to pay bigger dividends and start buying back shares of stock, both of which make stocks more valuable.
"Corporate balance sheets haven't been in better shape over the last 200 years, period," says Joe Davis, the chief economist at fund giant Vanguard.
And there's no ignoring the economic recovery. The economy was shrinking at almost a 5 percent annual rate when stocks bottomed in 2009. Now it's growing at almost a 3 percent pace. Businesses added 222,000 jobs in February, the most since April 2010, and unemployment has fallen almost a full percentage point in three months.
"The economy is absolutely justifying what is happening in the stock market," says Liz Ann Sonders, an investment strategist at Charles Schwab.
Some investors say there isn't a bubble yet but worry that the market is in the first stages of inflating one. Rob Arnott, the founder of investment firm Research Affliates, thinks the stock market is "dangerously" overpriced. He points to Apple, which has a $321 billion market value, making it the second-largest company in the world behind Exxon Mobil. By revenue, profits or payouts to investors, however, Apple fails to crack the top 20, Arnott says.
"They have wonderful products and a finger on the pulse of the consumer like nobody else," Arnott says. "But the second-largest on the planet must mean Apple is the second-largest source of profits. Boy, that's a stretch."
Judged by other measures of value, the companies that make up the S&P 500 look rich. Investors are paying 24 times inflation-adjusted earnings over the last decade. The historical average is 16. That ratio could climb if people push stock prices higher because they expect earnings to catch up. But Arnott believes people are already underestimating larger problems ahead. The U.S. government's $14 trillion in debt and a greater share of the work force hitting retirement are both bound to drag down economic growth. "That's quite a hurricane," he says.
Legendary investor Jeremy Grantham, chief investment strategist of GMO, has a knack for timing. In a letter to investors released in early March 2009, Grantham argued it was impossible to declare a bottom in the stock market but said its steep drop was reason enough to jump back in. He predicted that the combined efforts of the Fed and government spending would spur a stock rally "far in excess of anything justified by either long-term or short-term fundamentals."
Grantham remains a critic of the Fed's stimulus program but isn't willing to say stocks have reached bubble territory. At least not yet. If the S&P 500, at 1,321 on Friday, climbs to 1,500 by October, then watch out. At that point, he says, "it will be a market looking for an excuse to go. On the first piece of really bad news, it will make a determined effort to tank."
Lava spews 65 feet high after crater collapse - Yahoo! News
VOLCANO, Hawaii – A new vent has opened at one of the world's most active volcanoes, sending lava shooting up to 65 feet high, scientists at Kilauea volcano said Sunday.
The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said the fissure eruption was spotted shortly after the floor at the Pu'u O'o crater collapsed around 5 p.m. Saturday. It occurred along the middle of Kilauea's east rift zone, about 2 miles west of Pu'u O'o.
"As a volcanogist, this is what we do. These are the moments we wait for," volcanogist Janet Babb told KHON2. "It is exciting to see an eruption begin particularly if you can see it from the very start."
Kilauea has been in constant eruption since Jan. 3, 1983.
At the summit, lava receded rapidly late Saturday but seemed to slow Sunday. There were also about 150 small earthquakes were recorded within Kilauea in the past 24 hours.
Scientists said areas near the vent could erupt or collapse without warning, posing a threat to visitors or hikers to the area. Also potentially lethal concentrations of sulfer dioxide gas could be present within about a half-mile downwind of vent areas.
Because of the latest activity, the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park has closed Chain of Craters Road and all east rift zone and coastal trails. Kulanaokuaiki campground was also closed until further notice.
Babb told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald that the fissure has expanded to about 535 yards long and that scientists were hiking into the remote area to observe the fissure and take readings.
No homes are under threat.
UN Seeks Access to L
UN Seeks Access to Libyan 'Injured and Dying' | News | English
UN Seeks Access to Libyan 'Injured and Dying'
VOA News March 06, 2011
Photo: AFP / Marco Longari
A wounded fighter is brought into a the Ras Lanuf Hospital from the battle in Bin Jawad on March 6, 2011.
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The United Nations is calling on Libya to allow it immediate access to the rebel-held western city of Misrata, following reports of fighting and deaths in the area.
U.N. emergency relief coordinator Valerie Amos said Sunday that people "are injured and dying and need help immediately." She also called on all sides of the conflict to "ensure that civilians are protected from harm."
The U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the Red Crescent Society in Benghazi reported that Misrata, 200 kilometers east of Tripoli, is under attack by government forces, and that the Libyan Red Crescent is trying to get ambulances from Tripoli in to collect the dead and injured.
Libyan leader Moammmr Gadhafi's government has retained control of Tripoli in western Libya, while rebel forces trying to topple his government have taken over much of the east.
Protests against Mr. Gadhafi erupted in mid-February, with demonstrators calling for an end to his 42-year rule. The Libyan leader has refused demands to step down, at one point saying he expects to die a "martyr."
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BBC News – Rare Ki
5 Start-ups Bubbling
5 Start-ups Bubbling Up At TED
5 Start-ups Bubbling Up At TED
Five projects to watch from the TED community.
Courtesy TED/Flickr
Marcin Jakubowski started Global Village Construction Set, a global collaboration to open source the plans for the essentials of human civilization.
While the main stage talks are the intellectual core of the TED experience, they're far from the only thing going on. As one might expect from a community thick with ideas and inspiration, there is an immense undercurrent of entrepreneurial excitement and activity that runs through the event. Here are a few of cooler projects in the works by the TED community this year.
Crowdvoice.org - The young people behind MideastYouth.com - a constellation of sites about minority rights and political activism in the Middle East - have recently released Crowdvoice.org. The platform is a human curated site that allows anyone in the world to go straight to the heart of political and human rights issues and sift through the noise to find the most compelling videos, photos, and other user-created reports from the front lines.
The Braille Phone - The world is increasingly mobile, yet for the blind, mobile interfaces have not developed nearly as far as is necessary to truly give them access to modern computing technology. This is even more the case for people in the developing world who still use feature phones more than smart, web-connected phones. The Braille Phone is a prototype by Indian interaction designer Sumit Dagar that is meant to totally revolutionize the accessibility of the mobile phone.
Marcin Jakubowski - Upon completion of his PhD in the physics of fusion, Marcin Jakubowski felt the need to reconnect with the earth. He began farming in middle America, and as his tractor broke and broke again, he began to wonder why there wasn't some form of open source hardware that allowed people like him to build the machines essential for human civilization. That pondering led to the Global Village Construction Set, a global collaboration to open source the plans and implements for everything from tractors to ovens.
Bubbli - Bubbli debuted on the TED stage yesterday, showing the audience a new augmented reality experience. When people take a photo on their phone or iPad, Bubbli augments the information to create an interactive 3D experience. The idea is that if you take a picture and then want to share it later, people can actually move the phone up, down and around to see not only the main frame of the photo, but the environment around it that you were experiencing when you took the shot.
Push Pop Press - One can't help but look at the ebooks of today and wonder if we're still in the 1.0 phase of online reading. So far, the experience of reading a big offline has simply gone digital, rather than taking advantage of the unique attributes of the digital medium. Push Pop Press is trying to actually change the experience, incorporating immersive multimedia into books in a way that simply hasn't happened yet.
Oil’s rise to 2-1/
Tom Petruno: Is infl
Tom Petruno: Is inflation wolf at the door? - latimes.com
Veteran Wall Street trader Victor Sperandeo had a chilling forecast for the audience at an investor gathering last month in Century City.
Hyperinflation, he warned, had become a serious possibility for the U.S. given the unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus supporting the economy.
That could translate into the consumer price index eventually rising at a rate of 50% or more per month, said the man known as Trader Vic.
Not unexpectedly, Sperandeo also had a product pitch for the 100 or so investors who were there at the invitation of money management firm Rydex SGI. In a time of hyperinflation, Sperandeo said, Rydex's so-called managed futures funds would be a way to ride what could be exponential increases in the prices of commodities such as wheat and gold.
We've reached a point where inflation has become Topic A in many discussions about what comes next for the U.S. economy and financial markets.
Oil's rise to 2-1/2 year high ignites inflation fears | Reuters
(Reuters) - Oil jumped to 2-1/2 year highs on Friday on more violence in Libya, and more expensive crude sparked inflation worries that drove up gold but pressured copper and agricultural commodities on fears economic growth would slow.
Jim Conrad’s Natur
Jim Conrad's Naturalist Newsletter
Issued from Hacienda Chichen Resort adjoining Chichén Itzá Ruin in
YUCATÁN, MÉXICOMarch 6, 2011
RATTLESNAKE
Deep in the dry season curled, brown leaves littered the grove's floor as I wandered among trees not paying much attention to where I was going. Maybe a not-consciously noted movement on the forest floor alerted my woolgathering mind to the 2½-ft-long (76cm) snake laid out before me, one whose diamondback pattern beautifully camouflaged him in the dry-leaf mosaic.It was the Neotropical Rattlesnake, CROTALUS DURISSUS, a species occurring from northeastern Mexico south to Uruguay and Argentina, the distribution area being highly fragmented so that in some areas where you'd expect it, it's just not there.
We were away from the main tourist area but close enough to be of concern. I made the five-minute hike to the hut to get a bucket with a lid on it to put the snake in, and when I returned he was still there, not far from where I'd left him.
I held my walking stick before him to see how snappish he was, and he hardly seemed to notice. I passed the stick beneath his head, then farther back, until it was about midway beneath his body, lifted him up, and he behaved as if this happened to him every day. Gently I dropped him into the bucket, where he curled up, never once having shown fear or anger and never having rattled his rattles. Sometimes he looked around and once he flattened his head cobra-like, but that was his only hint that he noticed anything unusual happening to him. This mellow behavior is just like what I've experienced among Timber Rattlers back in Mississippi.
You can see the snake curled inside the bucket at
