Wall Street Week Ahead: Earnings, money flows to push stocks higher

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With earnings momentum on the rise, the S&P 500 seems to have few hurdles ahead as it continues to power higher, its all-time high a not-so-distant goal. The U.S. equity benchmark closed the week at a fresh five-year high on strong housing and labor market data and a string of earnings that beat lowered expectations. Sector indexes in transportation...

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IHT Rendezvous: China's 'Lamborghini' Coefficient: Who's Getting Richer and Who Poorer?

BEIJING — Search the word Gini, or “jini,” for Gini coefficient, the well-known measure of income inequality, on China’s biggest microblogging site and the first result today was for Lamborghini, the Italian luxury sports car (in Chinese, the two words share a similar sound in the last part of the car’s name.)That is very ironic because the Gini coefficient measures income inequality and the Lamborghini,...

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Google says Wall Street estimates need adjusting

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc issued a rare advisory to Wall Street on Friday that analyst estimates for its fourth quarter financial results are flawed.The world’s No.1 search engine, which reports its quarterly results on Tuesday, said most analysts have not adjusted their estimates to reflect the pending $ 2.35 billion sale of the Motorola Home business.The business must be presented separately...

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Allison Williams of Girls: I'm Nothing Like Marnie, But I Root for Her

TV Watch By Tim Nudd 01/20/2013 at 11:15 AM EST Allison Williams wouldn't masturbate in a public restroom. But that's not the only difference between her and Marnie Michaels, the character she plays on HBO's hit comedy Girls. "There were moments reading the script that I thought, 'WOW, okay!' " the actress, 24,...

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Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home...

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Wall Street Week Ahead: Earnings, money flows to push stocks higher

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With earnings momentum on the rise, the S&P 500 seems to have few hurdles ahead as it continues to power higher, its all-time high a not-so-distant goal. The U.S. equity benchmark closed the week at a fresh five-year high on strong housing and labor market data and a string of earnings that beat lowered expectations. Sector indexes in transportation...

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Algeria Begins ‘Final Assault’ on Gas Field; 7 Hostages Reported Killed

BAMAKO, Mali — The hostage crisis in the Algerian desert appeared to be reaching a bloody conclusion Saturday as the official Algerian news agency reported that the army had launched a final assault on the gas field taken over by Islamist militants, killing 11 of them, but only after they had executed seven hostages. “In principle, it’s all over,” a senior Algerian government official said...

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Social media dispute resolution stumps some companies

(Reuters) – If HBO cuts out on you in the middle of the latest “Girls” episode, and you have Charter Communications Inc as your cable provider, don’t try tweeting your dismay to their customer service department. Nobody will hear your lament.Charter, the fourth largest cable provider in the U.S. with 5.2 million customers across 25 states, closed up its social-media based customer service team in...

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Rob Lowe Acquits Himself Nicely in Lifetime's Prosecuting Casey Anthony (Review)

TV Watch By PEOPLE TV Critic Tom Gliatto 01/19/2013 at 11:45 AM EST Rob Lowe in Prosecuting Casey Anthony Allen Fraser/Lifetime     When last we saw Rob Lowe in a Lifetime movie, he was playing murderer Drew Peterson with a sandy mustache that...

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Lilly drug chosen for Alzheimer's prevention study

Researchers have chosen an experimental drug by Eli Lilly & Co. for a large federally funded study testing whether it's possible to prevent Alzheimer's disease in older people at high risk of developing it.The drug, called solanezumab (sol-ah-NAYZ-uh-mab), is designed to bind to and help clear the sticky deposits that clog patients' brains.Earlier studies found it did not help people with moderate...

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