Apple shares fall on reports of cuts to iPhone parts orders

(Reuters) – Shares in Apple Inc dipped below $ 500 for the first time in almost one year after reports it is slashing orders for screens and other components from its Asian supplier as intensifying competition erodes demand for its latest iPhone.

Japan‘s Nikkei reported on Monday that the world’s largest technology corporation began sharply reducing buying of liquid crystal displays about a month ago from suppliers like Japan Display Inc and Sharp Corp.

Sharp’s stock dipped as much as 7 percent in early trading on Tuesday and shares in South Korean Apple suppliers such as LG Display also fell.

“We can’t comment on individual clients,” said Miyuki Nakayama, a spokeswoman for Sharp, which builds iPhone 5 screens at its Kameyama plant in central Japan. Japan Display, a state-run business formed from the small LCD units of Sony Corp, Toshiba Corp and Hitachi Ltd also declined to discuss its orders.

The Nikkei report, later matched by the Wall Street Journal, comes as hard-charging rivals like Samsung Electronics, which makes phones based on Google Inc’s popular Android software, continue to expand market share globally.

Apple stock slid more than 4 percent to an intraday low of $ 498.51 — a level not seen since February 16, 2012 — before bouncing back to trade just above $ 500 at midday. The news also hurt shares of suppliers such as Cirrus Logic Inc, which dived 9 percent.

Some analysts argued that Apple and its manufacturing partners had struggled with quality issues that might have curtailed production times.

Dogged by low production yields, Sharp last year fell behind schedule for iPhone 5 screen shipments in the run-up to the phone’s launch in September. Sharp has yet to acknowledge that Apple is a customer.

“Our checks with supply chain contacts close to the situation identified a very different cause: a slower ramp in the manufacturing of iPhones and iPads (reflecting some quality control issues) and insufficient production lines,” said JoAnne Feeney of Longbow Research.

“Rather than ordering more components and having inventory build up further, Apple put component suppliers on notice to hold off, for the time being, on further shipments until it expanded its production lines – which it plans to complete by the end of the quarter.”

By some estimates, the holiday quarter may have been the worst for U.S. retailers since the 2008 financial crisis, with sales growth far below expectations. Other data yields a more mixed picture of holiday season demand.

Apple was not immediately available for comment. No one at Sharp was immediately available to comment on Monday – a national holiday in Japan – and parts suppliers to Apple in Taiwan declined to comment.

CUTBACKS

Apple has asked Japan Display, Sharp and LG Display Co Ltd to roughly halve supplies of LCD panels from an initial plan for about 65 million screens in January-March, the Nikkei cited people familiar with the situation as saying.

Japan Display’s plant in southwest Japan, where Apple has invested heavily, is expected to temporarily reduce output by up to 80 percent from October-December levels, the Nikkei reported, while Sharp’s dedicated facility for iPhone 5 LCDs will trim production in January-February by about 40 percent.

The move, if confirmed, would tally with analysts saying that sales of the new iPhone 5, which was released in September, have not been as strong as anticipated.

Apple has lost ground gradually to South Korean rival Samsung, as well as smaller, fast-growing rivals such as China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp.

Samsung overtook Apple in 2012 to become the world’s biggest seller of smartphones, helped in part by the popularity of its Galaxy Note II phone-cum-tablet and a vastly wider range of low- to high-end devices that appeal to a broad swath of consumers. Apple rolled out a single new smartphone last year.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek trimmed his iPhone shipment estimates for the January-March quarter on December 14, saying that the technology company had started cutting orders to suppliers to balance excess inventory.

Apple also cut its orders for memory chips for its new iPhone from its main supplier and competitor Samsung, Reuters reported in September, quoting sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

The company has been cutting back its orders from Samsung as it seeks to diversify its memory chip supply lines.

Samsung said on Monday that global sales of its flagship Galaxy S smartphones had topped 100 million since the first model was launched in May 2010. The Galaxy S3, launched last May, sold more than 40 million in seven months.

The Galaxy S IV is expected within months and may sport an unbreakable screen, full high-definition quality resolution of 440 pixels per inch, and a more powerful processor.

It’s expected to increase its smartphone sales by more than a third this year and widen its lead over Apple, according to researcher Strategy Analytics. It forecast Samsung will sell 290 million smartphones in 2013 versus iPhone sales of 180 million.

Kim Sung-in, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities in Seoul, sees Samsung shipping 320 million smartphones this year and doubling sales of its tablets to 32 million.

(Reporting by Tokyo bureau, Avik Das and Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore, Clare Jim in Taipei and Tim Kelly in Tokyo; Editing by Supriya Kurane, Andrew Hay and Alex Richardson)

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It's Halle Berry vs. Eva Longoria and the Thigh's the Limit

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01/13/2013 at 11:25 PM ET

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We could call it pulling an Angelina, but at this point, lots of stars have flashed lots of legs on lots of red carpets — and Halle Berry and Eva Longoria are two of the latest.

The stars tied for the “highest slit” award at the Golden Globes Sunday night, beating fellow risk-takers Lea Michele, Miranda Kerr and Katharine McPhee and giving all of us quite the eyeful. Berry gave the goods while posing in her Versace gown, while Longoria (in Emilio Pucci) made her big reveal as she walked toward the Beverly Hilton. So whose leg flashing did you like better? Vote in our poll below!

PHOTOS: FIND OUT WHICH STARS MADE THE BEST DRESSED LIST

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Flu more widespread in US; eases off in some areas

NEW YORK (AP) — Flu is now widespread in all but three states as the nation grapples with an earlier-than-normal season. But there was one bit of good news Friday: The number of hard-hit areas declined.

The flu season in the U.S. got under way a month early, in December, driven by a strain that tends to make people sicker. That led to worries that it might be a bad season, following one of the mildest flu seasons in recent memory.

The latest numbers do show that the flu surpassed an "epidemic" threshold last week. That is based on deaths from pneumonia and influenza in 122 U.S. cities. However, it's not unusual — the epidemic level varies at different times of the year, and it was breached earlier this flu season, in October and November.

And there's a hint that the flu season may already have peaked in some spots, like in the South. Still, officials there and elsewhere are bracing for more sickness

In Ohio, administrators at Miami University are anxious that a bug that hit employees will spread to students when they return to the Oxford campus next week.

"Everybody's been sick. It's miserable," said Ritter Hoy, a spokeswoman for the 17,000-student school.

Despite the early start, health officials say it's not too late to get a flu shot. The vaccine is considered a good — though not perfect — protection against getting really sick from the flu.

Flu was widespread in 47 states last week, up from 41 the week before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday. The only states without widespread flu were California, Mississippi and Hawaii.

The number of hard-hit states fell to 24 from 29, where larger numbers of people were treated for flu-like illness. Now off that list: Florida, Arkansas and South Carolina in the South, the first region hit this flu season.

Recent flu reports included holiday weeks when some doctor's offices were closed, so it will probably take a couple more weeks to get a better picture, CDC officials said Friday. Experts say so far say the season looks moderate.

"Only time will tell how moderate or severe this flu season will be," CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said Friday in a teleconference with reporters.

The government doesn't keep a running tally of adult deaths from the flu, but estimates that it kills about 24,000 people in an average year. Nationally, 20 children have died from the flu this season.

Flu vaccinations are recommended for everyone 6 months or older. Since the swine flu epidemic in 2009, vaccination rates have increased in the U.S., but more than half of Americans haven't gotten this year's vaccine.

Nearly 130 million doses of flu vaccine were distributed this year, and at least 112 million have been used. Vaccine is still available, but supplies may have run low in some locations, officials said.

To find a shot, "you may have to call a couple places," said Dr. Patricia Quinlisk, who tracks the flu in Iowa.

In midtown Manhattan, Hyrmete Sciuto got a flu shot Friday at a drugstore. She skipped it in recent years, but news reports about the flu this week worried her.

During her commute from Edgewater, N.J., by ferry and bus, "I have people coughing in my face," she said. "I didn't want to risk it this year."

The vaccine is no guarantee, though, that you won't get sick. On Friday, CDC officials said a recent study of more than 1,100 people has concluded the current flu vaccine is 62 percent effective. That means the average vaccinated person is 62 percent less likely to get a case of flu that sends them to the doctor, compared to people who don't get the vaccine. That's in line with other years.

The vaccine is reformulated annually, and this year's is a good match to the viruses going around.

The flu's early arrival coincided with spikes in flu-like illnesses caused by other bugs, including a new norovirus that causes vomiting and diarrhea, or what is commonly known as "stomach flu." Those illnesses likely are part of the heavy traffic in hospital and clinic waiting rooms, CDC officials said.

Europeans also are suffering an early flu season, though a milder strain predominates there. China, Japan, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Algeria and the Republic of Congo have also reported increasing flu.

Flu usually peaks in midwinter. Symptoms can include fever, cough, runny nose, head and body aches and fatigue. Some people also suffer vomiting and diarrhea, and some develop pneumonia or other severe complications.

Most people with flu have a mild illness. But people with severe symptoms should see a doctor. They may be given antiviral drugs or other medications to ease symptoms.

Some shortages have been reported for children's liquid Tamiflu, a prescription medicine used to treat flu. But health officials say adult Tamiflu pills are available, and pharmacists can convert those to doses for children.

___

Associated Press writers Dan Sewell in Cincinnati, Catherine Lucey in Des Moines, and Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.

___

Online:

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

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Yen under pressure, Asian stocks drift up

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The yen plumbed a 2-1/2 year low against the dollar on Monday, grabbing the Asian spotlight amid subdued trading for the region's stock markets, with Japan's central bank in focus as it faced unrelenting political pressure to deliver bold stimulus.

The euro also notched up handsome gains against the dollar and the yen, helped by waning expectations of any further monetary easing from the European Central Bank.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Sunday the Bank of Japan (BOJ) must set a 2 percent inflation target and make it a medium-term, not long-term, goal to show markets it was determined to pursue bold monetary easing to end nearly two decades of deflation.

His comments emboldened yen bears, who took a fresh swipe at the currency. That pushed the U.S. dollar to a high of 89.67 yen, a level not seen since mid-2010, while the euro scaled a 20-month peak above 120.00 yen.

"The confirmation that there's going to be a push for a new (BOJ) governor, that new governor is going to have a mandate of 2 percent inflation, that plus the fiscal stimulus is a major negative for the yen," said Callum Henderson, global head of FX research for Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore.

In contrast, equity markets had little news to go on. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose a modest 0.3 percent, remaining near a 17-month peak set on Friday.

Tokyo markets were closed for a public holiday.

Having staged a 2-percent rally at the start of the year on growing optimism about the health of the global economy, stock markets appeared to be pausing for confirmation of a brighter global growth outlook.

Australian's benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index ended with a 0.2 percent gain, South Korea's KOSPI closed 0.5 percent higher, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index advanced 0.6 percent. The Shanghai Composite index rose 2.5 percent, recovering from Friday's 1.8 percent fall, with gains led by financials and property after a media report that the roll-out of a pilot property tax scheme could be delayed.

European markets looked poised to follow Asia's lead. Financial spread-betters predicted London's FTSE 100, Paris's CAC-40 and Frankfurt's DAX would open 0.3-0.4 percent higher.

U.S. stock futures were a shade firmer, hinting at a steady start for Wall Street.

Analysts at HSBC believe global developments this week will support demand for riskier assets, with U.S. and Chinese data likely to show further momentum in the world's two biggest economies.

"In addition, the Fed speaker calendar is dominated by doves in the early part of the week. These should provide reassurance that the Fed is in no rush to turn off the liquidity tap despite these early signs of encouragement on activity," they said in a client note.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is due to speak at the University of Michigan on Monday and investors are eagerly waiting for clues on how long the Fed's latest bond purchase program will last.

Any signs that the Fed is in no hurry to end its quantitative easing program could see the U.S. dollar soften further against higher-yielding currencies such as the Australian dollar and those of faster-growing emerging economies.

The Aussie dollar rose 0.2 percent to $1.0556, within easy reach of a four-month high of $1.0599 set last week. China's yuan flirted with record highs against the greenback, changing hands at 6.2149 per dollar.

The euro was up 0.4 percent at a fresh nine-month high of $1.3404, continuing to outperform the greenback after European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi last week gave no indication the bank would ease monetary policy any further.

Commodity prices found some traction after last week's decline. Brent crude gained 39 cents to $111.03 a barrel as fears of supply disruption in the Middle East resurfaced, while U.S. crude rose 62 cents to $94.18 a barrel.

Copper edged up 0.7 percent to $8,101 a metric ton and gold was a shade firmer at $1,666 an ounce.

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India Ink: Is Delhi So Different From Steubenville?

IN India, a 23-year-old student takes a bus home from a movie and is gang-raped and assaulted so viciously that she dies two weeks later.

In Liberia, in West Africa, an aid group called More Than Me rescues a 10-year-old orphan who has been trading oral sex for clean water to survive.

In Steubenville, Ohio, high school football players are accused of repeatedly raping an unconscious 16-year-old girl who was either drunk or rendered helpless by a date-rape drug and was apparently lugged like a sack of potatoes from party to party.

And in Washington, our members of Congress show their concern for sexual violence by failing to renew the Violence Against Women Act, a landmark law first passed in 1994 that has now expired.

Gender violence is one of the world’s most common human rights abuses. Women worldwide ages 15 through 44 are more likely to die or be maimed because of male violence than because of cancer, malaria, war and traffic accidents combined. The World Health Organization has found that domestic and sexual violence affects 30 to 60 percent of women in most countries.

In some places, rape is endemic: in South Africa, a survey found that 37 percent of men reported that they had raped a woman. In others, rape is institutionalized as sex trafficking. Everywhere, rape often puts the victim on trial: in one poll, 68 percent of Indian judges said that “provocative attire” amounts to “an invitation to rape.”

Americans watched the events after the Delhi gang rape with a whiff of condescension at the barbarity there, but domestic violence and sex trafficking remain a vast problem across the United States.

One obstacle is that violence against women tends to be invisible and thus not a priority. In Delhi, of 635 rape cases reported in the first 11 months of last year, only one ended in conviction. That creates an incentive for rapists to continue to rape, but in any case that reported number of rapes is delusional. They don’t include the systematized rape of sex trafficking. India has, by my reckoning, more women and girls trafficked into modern slavery than any country in the world. (China has more prostitutes, but they are more likely to sell sex by choice.)

On my last trip to India, I tagged along on a raid on a brothel in Kolkata, organized by the International Justice Mission. In my column at the time, I focused on a 15-year-old and a 10-year-old imprisoned in the brothel, and mentioned a 17-year-old only in passing because I didn’t know her story.

My assistant at The Times, Natalie Kitroeff, recently visited India and tracked down that young woman. It turns out that she had been trafficked as well — she was apparently drugged at a teahouse and woke up in the brothel. She said she was then forced to have sex with customers and beaten when she protested. She was never allowed outside and was never paid. What do you call what happened to those girls but slavery?

Yet prosecutors and the police often shrug — or worse. Dr. Shershah Syed, a former president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Pakistan, once told me: “When I treat a rape victim, I always advise her not to go to the police. Because if she does, the police might just rape her again.”

In the United States, the case in Steubenville has become controversial partly because of the brutishness that the young men have been accused of, but also because of concerns that the authorities protected the football team. Some people in both Delhi and Steubenville rushed to blame the victim, suggesting that she was at fault for taking a bus or going to a party. They need to think: What if that were me?

The United States could help change the way the world confronts these issues. On a remote crossing of the Nepal-India border, I once met an Indian police officer who said, a bit forlornly, that he was stationed there to look for terrorists and pirated movies. He wasn’t finding any, but India posted him there to show that it was serious about American concerns regarding terrorism and intellectual property. Meanwhile, that officer ignored the steady flow of teenage Nepali girls crossing in front of him on their way to Indian brothels, because modern slavery was not perceived as an American priority.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has done a superb job trying to put these issues on the global agenda, and I hope President Obama and Senator John Kerry will continue her efforts. But Congress has been pathetic. Not only did it fail to renew the Violence Against Women Act, but it has also stalled on the global version, the International Violence Against Women Act, which would name and shame foreign countries that tolerate gender violence.

Congress even failed to renew the landmark legislation against human trafficking, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. The obstacles were different in each case, but involved political polarization and paralysis. Can members of Congress not muster a stand on modern slavery?

(Hmm. I now understand better the results of a new survey from Public Policy Polling showing that Congress, with 9 percent approval, is less popular than cockroaches, traffic jams, lice or Genghis Khan.)

Skeptics fret that sexual violence is ingrained into us, making the problem hopeless. But just look at modern American history, for the rising status of women has led to substantial drops in rates of reported rape and domestic violence. Few people realize it, but Justice Department statistics suggest that the incidence of rape has fallen by three-quarters over the last four decades.

Likewise, the rate at which American women are assaulted by their domestic partners has fallen by more than half in the last two decades. That reflects a revolution in attitudes. Steven Pinker, in his book “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” notes that only half of Americans polled in 1987 said that it was always wrong for a man to beat his wife with a belt or a stick; a decade later, 86 percent said it was always wrong.

But the progress worldwide is far too slow. Let’s hope that India makes such violence a national priority. And maybe the rest of the world, especially our backward Congress, will appreciate that the problem isn’t just India’s but also our own.

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Iowa man, sister reunite thanks to boy, Facebook

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa man and his sister have reunited 65 years after being separated in foster care thanks to a 7-year-old friend’s Facebook search.

Clifford Boyson of Davenport met his sibling, Betty Billadeau, in person Saturday. Billadeau drove up from her home in Florissant, Mo., with her daughter and granddaughter for the reunion at a hotel in Davenport.

Boyson, 66, and Billadeau, 70, both tried to find each other for years without success. They were placed in different foster homes in Chicago when they were children.

Then 7-year-old Eddie Hanzelin, who is the son of Boyson‘s landlord, got involved.

Eddie managed to find Billadeau by searching his mom’s Facebook account with Billadeau’s maiden name. He recognized the family resemblance when he saw her picture.

“Oh, my God,” Boyson said when he saw and hugged Billadeau.

“You do have a sister,” Billadeau said.

“You’re about the same height Mom was,” Boyson said.

Billadeau’s daughter, Sarah Billadeau, 42, and granddaughter, Megan Billadeau, 27, both wiped away tears and smiled during the reunion.

“He didn’t have any women in his life,” Sarah said. “We’re going to get that straightened out real fast.”

Boyson said he’s looking forward to visiting Billadeau near St. Louis and meeting more family.

“I’m hoping I can go and spend a week or two,” he said. “I want to meet the whole congregation. I never knew I had a big family.”

Eddie, who enjoys messing around with his family’s iPad, said he’s glad he was able to assist in making the reunion happen and that he learned about helping others at school.

“Clifford did not have any family, and family’s important,” the boy said.

Near the end of their tearful reunion Boyson and Billadeau presented Eddie with a $ 125 check in appreciation of his detective work.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Miss New York Mallory Hytes Hagan Wins Miss America

01/12/2013 at 11:45 PM EST

Miss American 2013 Mallory Hytes Hagan

CraigSjodin/ABC

The crown is headed to the Big Apple!

Brooklyn, N.Y., native Mallory Hytes Hagan was crowned Miss America in Las Vegas on Saturday.

Miss New York, 23, beat out Miss South Carolina Ali Rogers, who placed second, and Miss Oklahoma Alicia Clifton, who finished third. Miss Wyoming Lexie Madden and Miss Iowa Mariah Cary rounded out the top five.

Miss Montana Alexis Wineman, who has autism, was one of 16 semifinalists.

Hagan tapped danced to James Brown's "Get Up Off That Thing" for her talent and answered a question about armed guards in schools from Good Morning America's Sam Champion, who was one of the celebrity judges for the pageant this year, in the Q&A portion of the competition.

"I don't think the proper way to fight violence is with violence," she said, donning a white evening gown.

Hagan, whose platform is child sexual abuse prevention, attended the Fashion Institute of Technology and hopes to obtain a degree in Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing, according to her online bio.

She won a $50,000 scholarship as well as a sash and a crown.

Hagan's win was a bit of a surprise, considering Las Vegas oddsmakers didn't have her among the top 15 favorites to don the crown at the conclusion of the two-hour competition at Las Vegas's Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino.

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Q&A: Scramble for vaccine as flu season heats up

WASHINGTON (AP) — Missed flu-shot day at the office last fall? And all those "get vaccinated" ads? A scramble for shots is under way as late-comers seek protection from a miserable flu strain already spreading through much of the country.

Federal health officials said Friday that there is still some flu vaccine available and it's not too late to benefit from it. But people may have to call around to find a clinic with shots still on the shelf, or wait a few days for a new shipment.

"We're hearing of spot shortages," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Colorado offers an example. Kaiser Permanente, which has 535,000 members in the state, stopped giving flu shots this week. But it expected to resume vaccinations when new shipments arrive, expected this weekend.

Some questions and answers about flu vaccines:

Q: Are we running out of vaccine?

A: It's January — we shouldn't have a lot left. The traditional time to get vaccinated is in the fall, so that people are protected before influenza starts spreading.

Indeed, manufacturers already have shipped nearly 130 million doses to doctors' offices, drugstores and wholesalers, out of the 135 million doses they had planned to make for this year's flu season. At least 112 million have been used so far.

The nation's largest manufacturer, Sanofi Pasteur, said Friday that it still has supplies of two specialty vaccines, a high-dose shot for seniors, and an under-the-skin shot for certain adults, available for immediate shipment. But it also is working to eke out a limited supply of its traditional shots — some doses that it initially hadn't packaged into syringes, said spokesman Michael Szumera. They should be available late this month.

And MedImmune, the maker of the nasal spray vaccine FluMist, said it has 620,000 extra doses available.

Q: Can't they just make more?

A: No. Flu vaccine is complicated to brew, with supplies for each winter made months in advance and at the numbers expected to sell. Although health officials recommend a yearly flu vaccination for nearly everybody, last year 52 percent of children and just 39 percent of adults were immunized. Most years, leftover doses have to be thrown out.

Q: Should I still hunt for a vaccine?

A: It does take two weeks for full protection to kick in. Still, health officials say it's a good idea to be vaccinated even this late, especially for older people, young children and anyone with medical conditions such as heart or lung diseases that put them at high risk of dangerous flu complications. Flu season does tend to be worst in January and February, but it can run through March.

Q: I heard that a new flu strain is spreading. Does the vaccine really work?

A: Flu strains constantly evolve, the reason that people need an updated vaccine every year. But the CDC says this year's is a good match to the types that are circulating, including a new kind of the tough H3N2 strain. That family tends to be harsher than other flu types — and health officials warned last fall that it was coming, and meant this winter would likely be tougher than last year's flu season, the mildest on record.

Q: But don't some people get vaccinated and still get sick?

A: Flu vaccine never is 100 percent effective, and unfortunately it tends to protect younger people better than older ones. But the CDC released a study Friday showing that so far this year, the vaccine appears 62 percent effective, meaning it's working about as well as it has in past flu seasons.

While that may strike some people as low, Frieden said it's the best protection available. "It's a glass 62 percent full," he said. "It's well worth the effort."

Q: What else can I do?

A: Wash your hands often, and avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth. Viruses can spread by hand, not just through the air. Also, cough in your elbow, not your hand. When you're sick, protect others by staying home.

And people who are in those high-risk groups should call a doctor if they develop symptoms, added CDC spokesman Tom Skinner. They might be prescribed antiviral medication, which works best if given within the first 48 hours of symptoms.

___

AP Medical Writers Lindsey Tanner and Mike Stobbe contributed to this report.

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Wall Street Week Ahead: Attention turns to financial earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After over a month of watching Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue, Wall Street can get back to what it knows best: Wall Street.

The first full week of earnings season is dominated by the financial sector - big investment banks and commercial banks - just as retail investors, free from the "fiscal cliff" worries, have started to get back into the markets.

Equities have risen in the new year, rallying after the initial resolution of the fiscal cliff in Washington on January 2. The S&P 500 on Friday closed its second straight week of gains, leaving it just fractionally off a five-year closing high hit on Thursday.

An array of financial companies - including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase - will report on Wednesday. Bank of America and Citigroup will join on Thursday.

"The banks have a read on the economy, on the health of consumers, on the health of demand," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

"What we're looking for is demand. Demand from small business owners, from consumers."

EARNINGS AND ECONOMIC EXPECTATIONS

Investors were greeted with a slightly better-than-anticipated first week of earnings, but expectations were low and just a few companies reported results.

Fourth quarter earnings and revenues for S&P 500 companies are both expected to have grown by 1.9 percent in the past quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Few large corporations have reported, with Wells Fargo the first bank out of the gate on Friday, posting a record profit. The bank, however, made fewer mortgage loans than in the third quarter and its shares were down 0.8 percent for the day.

The KBW bank index <.bkx>, a gauge of U.S. bank stocks, is up about 30 percent from a low hit in June, rising in six of the last eight months, including January.

Investors will continue to watch earnings on Friday, as General Electric will round out the week after Intel's report on Thursday.

HOUSING, INDUSTRIAL DATA ON TAP

Next week will also feature the release of a wide range of economic data.

Tuesday will see the release of retail sales numbers and the Empire State manufacturing index, followed by CPI data on Wednesday.

Investors and analysts will also focus on the housing starts numbers and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve factory activity index on Thursday. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment numbers are due on Friday.

Jim Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis, said he expected to see housing numbers continue to climb.

"They won't be that surprising if they're good, they'll be rather eye-catching if they're not good," he said. "The underlying drive of the markets, I think, is economic data. That's been the catalyst."

POLITICAL ANXIETY

Worries about the protracted fiscal cliff negotiations drove the markets in the weeks before the ultimate January 2 resolution, but fear of the debt ceiling fight has yet to command investors' attention to the same extent.

The agreement was likely part of the reason for a rebound in flows to stocks. U.S.-based stock mutual funds gained $7.53 billion after the cliff resolution in the week ending January 9, the most in a week since May 2001, according to Thomson Reuters' Lipper.

Markets are unlikely to move on debt ceiling news unless prominent lawmakers signal that they are taking a surprising position in the debate.

The deal in Washington to avert the cliff set up another debt battle, which will play out in coming months alongside spending debates. But this alarm has been sounded before.

"The market will turn the corner on it when the debate heats up," Prudential Financial's Krosby said.

The CBOE Volatility index <.vix> a gauge of traders' anxiety, is off more than 25 percent so far this month and it recently hit its lowest since June 2007, before the recession began.

"The market doesn't react to the same news twice. It will have to be more brutal than the fiscal cliff," Krosby said. "The market has been conditioned that, at the end, they come up with an agreement."

(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; editing by Rodrigo Campos)

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Israeli Police Evict Palestinian Protesters from E1

Ammar Awad/Reuters

Israeli border police remove a Palestinian activist from an outpost of tents in a disputed area known as E1.

JERUSALEM — Israeli security forces evicted scores of Palestinian activists before dawn on Sunday from a tent encampment they had set up set up two days earlier in a strategic piece of Israeli-occupied West Bank territory known as E1, east of Jerusalem, where Israel says it plans to build settler homes.

A police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said that police officers had removed the activists one by one, without any use of force, aside from some pushing and shoving, and that the police operation was over within an hour. But a spokeswoman for the protesters, Abir Kopty, said that six Palestinians had sought hospital treatment for injuries, some caused by punches to the face.

The encampment, which the protesters called the village of Bab al-Shams (Arabic for “Gate of the Sun”), represented a new kind of action by Palestinian grass-roots activists involved in what they describe as the nonviolent popular struggle against the Israeli occupation.

Employing a tactic more commonly used by Jewish settlers who establish wildcat outposts in the West Bank, the protesters had pitched their tents on Friday on what they said was privately owned land, and with the permission of the Palestinian landowners. They were immediately served eviction notices by the Israeli military authorities, but their lawyers had obtained a temporary injunction against their removal from the High Court of Justice until the state detailed the grounds for such a move.

But on Saturday evening, with the end of the Sabbath, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement saying he had ordered security forces to evacuate “forthwith” the Palestinians who had gathered in the area between Jerusalem and the large urban settlement of Maale Adumim.

The state responded to the High Court of Justice on Saturday night, arguing that the gathering would become a focus of protest that could lead to rioting, and asserting that most of the tents had been pitched on territory that Israel had declared state land. The court overturned the injunction, allowing the people to be removed from the site. Discussions about the fate of the tents were to continue on Sunday.

The Israeli authorities declared the area a closed military zone on Saturday evening and began building up security forces around the site.

The Palestinians claim E1, just east of Jerusalem, as part of a future state. The protest came six weeks after Israel announced that it was moving forward with plans for thousands of settlement homes in E1, stirring international outrage. Israel announced its intention as a countermeasure after the United Nations General Assembly voted in November to upgrade the Palestinians’ status to that of a nonmember observer state.

Israel wants East Jerusalem, which it has annexed, and Maale Adumim, which lies beyond E1, to be contiguous and says that the future of the West Bank has to be settled in negotiations. In the meantime, critics say, Israel continues to establish facts on the ground — a policy that the Palestinian protesters sought to emulate.

Ms. Kopty, the spokeswoman for the protesters, said about 100 Palestinians were removed from the site and taken to the Qalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah.

“The amount of support we got from Palestinians and across the world was heartwarming,” she said, speaking by telephone from the hospital in Ramallah where she was accompanying those who had been injured. “We hope this action will inspire Palestinians to do more, to break through the apathy and to take the popular struggle to the next level.”

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