U.S. stock index futures signal higher Wall Street open

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Tuesday, with futures for the S&P 500, the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq 100 rising 0.2 to 0.3 percent.

U.S. stocks slid on Monday, giving the S&P 500 its worst day since November, as renewed worries about the euro zone crisis caused the market to pull back from recent gains. Europe's main markets were marginally in the black after the latest batch of corporate results on Tuesday.

NYSE Euronext , the exchange being bought by rival IntercontinentalExchange , said slower trading drove fourth-quarter net revenue down 11 percent to $562 million.

ICSC/Goldman Sachs release chain store sales for the week ended February 2 at 7.45 a.m EST. Sales fell 1.0 percent in the previous week.

The U.S. government has launched a civil lawsuit against Standard & Poor's and parent The McGraw-Hill Companies over mortgage bond ratings, the first federal enforcement action against a credit rating agency over alleged illegal behavior tied to the recent financial crisis.

Redbook releases its Retail Sales Index of department and chain store sales for January at 1355 GMT. Sales fell 0.5 percent in the previous month.

Major companies announcing results on Tuesday included Walt Disney Company , Automatic Data Processing and Delphi Automotive .

The Institute for Supply Management releases its January non-manufacturing index at 1500 GMT. Economists forecast a reading of 55.2, versus 55.7 in December.

John Malone's cable group Liberty Global has approached Britain's No. 2 pay-TV operator Virgin Media about making a bid for the firm, the UK group said on Tuesday.

Technology services provider IBM on Tuesday said it is aiming to take on competitors such as Oracle and Hewlett Packard by offering a more affordable Power Systems server and storage product range later this month.

Japan's transport safety agency said it is still unclear whether battery chemistry or an electrical issue caused a main battery on a Boeing Co 787 Dreamliner operated by All Nippon Airways to overheat last month, forcing it to make an emergency landing.

European shares <.fteu3> rose 0.5 percent on Tuesday, stabilizing after the previous session's sharp sell-off, as investors digested a raft of earnings reports.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 129.71 points, or 0.93 percent, at 13,880.08 on Monday. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 17.46 points, or 1.15 percent, at 1,495.71. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 47.93 points, or 1.51 percent, at 3,131.17.

(Reporting by Atul Prakash)

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Ahmadinejad says he is ready to be first Iranian in space

DUBAI (Reuters) – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday he was ready to be the first human sent into orbit by Iran’s fledgling space program, Iranian media reported.

Iran declared last week that it had successfully launched a monkey into space and retrieved it alive, which officials hailed as a major step towards their goal of sending humans into space.

The launch added to Western concerns about Iran’s space program because the same rocket technology could potentially be used to deliver a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile.

“I am ready to be the first human to be sent to space by Iranian scientists,” Ahmadinejad said on Monday, on the sidelines of an exhibition of space achievements in Tehran, according to the Mehr news agency.

“Sending living things into space is the result of Iranian efforts and the dedication of thousands of Iranian scientists.”

Ahmadinejad is known for provocative public comments and it was unclear whether the suggestion was a serious one.

His second and final term as president ends in June, and his political star has been on the wane since he fell out with parliament early in his second term and appeared to lose the support of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

On Sunday he stood up in parliament to play a tape recording that he said provided evidence of corruption by the family of parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, his political arch-rival and a likely frontrunner to succeed him as president. Larijani and his brother Fazel denied the accusations.

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Marcus George and Kevin Liffey)

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Spanish worries tarnish growth outlook

London (Reuters) - European shares edged up but the euro fell and German bonds trimmed their losses on Monday as a resurgence of worries about Europe undermined positive sentiment stemming from stronger U.S. and Chinese economic data.

However, the rising confidence in the global economic recovery underpinned oil and copper, although prices moved in narrow ranges at the start of a week which sees policy meeting by several major central banks and a summit of European leaders.

"We are now seeing a consistent story of moderate growth in the U.S. and China," said Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney.

The economic outlook brightened considerably last week after data showed U.S. factory activity quickened in January and hiring increased, and after a survey of euro zone business activity suggested the worst of the region's downturn may be over.

On Sunday China's official purchasing managers' index (PMI) for the increasingly important services sector posted a fourth-straight monthly rise in January, although its slim gain added to evidence that the global recovery is a modest one.

But Spain dampened the mood in Europe by reporting that its unemployment problems are worsening as a corruption scandal threatens to engulf Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, with the opposition calling for his resignation.

"If Rajoy were really forced to resign, if we were to have new elections in Spain, that would not help the improvement we've seen in financial markets," Tobias Blattner, European economist at Daiwa Capital Markets said.

Ten-year Spanish government bond yields rose 11 basis points to 5.32 percent in early Monday trade.

The equivalent Italian yields also rose on concerns that a scandal involving a major domestic bank could boost support for the centre-right party led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi as election day approaches.

The German Bund future which had opened 53 ticks lower at 141.48, trimmed its losses to be only down 13 ticks.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> held near a 23-month high after a solid rally since the start of the year to be up 0.15 percent. London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> were flat to slightly lower.

Meanwhile the euro fell 0.3 percent to a day's low of $1.3602 after the Spanish jobs data was released, with bids cited at $1.3580 and $1.3600.

(Reporting by Richard Hubbard. Editing by David Stamp)

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UK loses 1,160 megawatts of nuclear power capacity

LONDON (Reuters) – EDF Energy took offline two UK nuclear reactors for refuelling since Saturday, it said, removing around 1,160 megawatts (MW) of nuclear power generating capacity from the national network.

The company disconnected its 600 MW Heysham 1-2 reactor on February 4 at 0100 GMT, it said on Monday, in line with earlier guidance.

Meanwhile, the 550 MW Dungeness B22 reactor was shutdown on Saturday, EDF said in a market note circulated on Sunday.

“Dungeness B reactor 22 was shutdown at 1 a.m. on Saturday February 2 for its planned refuelling outage,” a company spokesman said.

(Reporting by Oleg Vukmanovic; Editing by Louise Heavens; Editing by Louise Heavens)

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"Great Rotation"- A Wall Street fairy tale?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street's current jubilant narrative is that a rush into stocks by small investors has sparked a "great rotation" out of bonds and into equities that will power the bull market to new heights.

That sounds good, but there's a snag: The evidence for this is a few weeks of bullish fund flows that are hardly unusual for January.

Late-stage bull markets are typically marked by an influx of small investors coming late to the party - such as when your waiter starts giving you stock tips. For that to happen you need a good story. The "great rotation," with its monumental tone, is the perfect narrative to make you feel like you're missing out.

Even if something approaching a "great rotation" has begun, it is not necessarily bullish for markets. Those who think they are coming early to the party may actually be arriving late.

Investors pumped $20.7 billion into stocks in the first four weeks of the year, the strongest four-week run since April 2000, according to Lipper. But that pales in comparison with the $410 billion yanked from those funds since the start of 2008.

"I'm not sure you want to take a couple of weeks and extrapolate it into whatever trend you want," said Tobias Levkovich, chief U.S. equity strategist at Citigroup. "We have had instances where equity flows have picked up in the last two, three, four years when markets have picked up. They've generally not been signals of a continuation of that trend."

The S&P 500 rose 5 percent in January, its best month since October 2011 and its best January since 1997, driving speculation that retail investors were flooding back into the stock market.

Heading into another busy week of earnings, the equity market is knocking on the door of all-time highs due to positive sentiment in stocks, and that can't be ignored entirely. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> ended the week about 4 percent from an all-time high touched in October 2007.

Next week will bring results from insurers Allstate and The Hartford , as well as from Walt Disney , Coca-Cola Enterprises and Visa .

But a comparison of flows in January, a seasonal strong month for the stock market, shows that this January, while strong, is not that unusual. In January 2011 investors moved $23.9 billion into stock funds and $28.6 billion in 2006, but neither foreshadowed massive inflows the rest of that year. Furthermore, in 2006 the market gained more than 13 percent while in 2011 it was flat.

Strong inflows in January can happen for a number of reasons. There were a lot of special dividends issued in December that need reinvesting, and some of the funds raised in December tax-selling also find their way back into the market.

During the height of the tech bubble in 2000, when retail investors were really embracing stocks, a staggering $42.7 billion flowed into equities in January of that year, double the amount that flowed in this January. That didn't end well, as stocks peaked in March of that year before dropping over the next two-plus years.

MOM AND POP STILL WARY

Arguing against a 'great rotation' is not necessarily a bearish argument against stocks. The stock market has done well since the crisis. Despite the huge outflows, the S&P 500 has risen more than 120 percent since March 2009 on a slowly improving economy and corporate earnings.

This earnings season, a majority of S&P 500 companies are beating earnings forecast. That's also the case for revenue, which is a departure from the previous two reporting periods where less than 50 percent of companies beat revenue expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Meanwhile, those on the front lines say mom and pop investors are still wary of equities after the financial crisis.

"A lot of people I talk to are very reluctant to make an emotional commitment to the stock market and regardless of income activity in January, I think that's still the case," said David Joy, chief market strategist at Columbia Management Advisors in Boston, where he helps oversee $571 billion.

Joy, speaking from a conference in Phoenix, says most of the people asking him about the "great rotation" are fund management industry insiders who are interested in the extra business a flood of stock investors would bring.

He also pointed out that flows into bond funds were positive in the month of January, hardly an indication of a rotation.

Citi's Levkovich also argues that bond investors are unlikely to give up a 30-year rally in bonds so quickly. He said stocks only began to see consistent outflows 26 months after the tech bubble burst in March 2000. By that reading it could be another year before a serious rotation begins.

On top of that, substantial flows continue to make their way into bonds, even if it isn't low-yielding government debt. January 2013 was the second best January on record for the issuance of U.S. high-grade debt, with $111.725 billion issued during the month, according to International Finance Review.

Bill Gross, who runs the $285 billion Pimco Total Return Fund, the world's largest bond fund, commented on Twitter on Thursday that "January flows at Pimco show few signs of bond/stock rotation," adding that cash and money markets may be the source of inflows into stocks.

Indeed, the evidence suggests some of the money that went into stock funds in January came from money markets after a period in December when investors, worried about the budget uncertainty in Washington, started parking money in late 2012.

Data from iMoneyNet shows investors placed $123 billion in money market funds in the last two months of the year. In two weeks in January investors withdrew $31.45 billion of that, the most since March 2012. But later in the month money actually started flowing back.

(Additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Exxon’s 2012 profit of $44.9B just misses record

Exxon Mobil Corp. nearly set a record for annual profit. The oil giant reported Friday that 2012 net income was $ 44.88 billion, just $ 340 million — less than 1 percent — short of the company’s record set in 2008, when crude oil prices hit an all-time high. Exxon‘s profit for the last 10 years totals $ 343.4 billion.

— $ 44.88 billion in 2012

— $ 41.06 billion in 2011

— $ 30.46 billion in 2010

— $ 19.28 billion in 2009

— $ 45.22 billion in 2008

— $ 40.61 billion in 2007

— $ 39.50 billion in 2006

— $ 36.13 billion in 2005

— $ 25.33 billion in 2004

— $ 20.96 billion in 2003

Source: Exxon Mobil annual reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

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"Great Rotation"- A Wall Street fairy tale?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street's current jubilant narrative is that a rush into stocks by small investors has sparked a "great rotation" out of bonds and into equities that will power the bull market to new heights.

That sounds good, but there's a snag: The evidence for this is a few weeks of bullish fund flows that are hardly unusual for January.

Late-stage bull markets are typically marked by an influx of small investors coming late to the party - such as when your waiter starts giving you stock tips. For that to happen you need a good story. The "great rotation," with its monumental tone, is the perfect narrative to make you feel like you're missing out.

Even if something approaching a "great rotation" has begun, it is not necessarily bullish for markets. Those who think they are coming early to the party may actually be arriving late.

Investors pumped $20.7 billion into stocks in the first four weeks of the year, the strongest four-week run since April 2000, according to Lipper. But that pales in comparison with the $410 billion yanked from those funds since the start of 2008.

"I'm not sure you want to take a couple of weeks and extrapolate it into whatever trend you want," said Tobias Levkovich, chief U.S. equity strategist at Citigroup. "We have had instances where equity flows have picked up in the last two, three, four years when markets have picked up. They've generally not been signals of a continuation of that trend."

The S&P 500 rose 5 percent in January, its best month since October 2011 and its best January since 1997, driving speculation that retail investors were flooding back into the stock market.

Heading into another busy week of earnings, the equity market is knocking on the door of all-time highs due to positive sentiment in stocks, and that can't be ignored entirely. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> ended the week about 4 percent from an all-time high touched in October 2007.

Next week will bring results from insurers Allstate and The Hartford , as well as from Walt Disney , Coca-Cola Enterprises and Visa .

But a comparison of flows in January, a seasonal strong month for the stock market, shows that this January, while strong, is not that unusual. In January 2011 investors moved $23.9 billion into stock funds and $28.6 billion in 2006, but neither foreshadowed massive inflows the rest of that year. Furthermore, in 2006 the market gained more than 13 percent while in 2011 it was flat.

Strong inflows in January can happen for a number of reasons. There were a lot of special dividends issued in December that need reinvesting, and some of the funds raised in December tax-selling also find their way back into the market.

During the height of the tech bubble in 2000, when retail investors were really embracing stocks, a staggering $42.7 billion flowed into equities in January of that year, double the amount that flowed in this January. That didn't end well, as stocks peaked in March of that year before dropping over the next two-plus years.

MOM AND POP STILL WARY

Arguing against a 'great rotation' is not necessarily a bearish argument against stocks. The stock market has done well since the crisis. Despite the huge outflows, the S&P 500 has risen more than 120 percent since March 2009 on a slowly improving economy and corporate earnings.

This earnings season, a majority of S&P 500 companies are beating earnings forecast. That's also the case for revenue, which is a departure from the previous two reporting periods where less than 50 percent of companies beat revenue expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Meanwhile, those on the front lines say mom and pop investors are still wary of equities after the financial crisis.

"A lot of people I talk to are very reluctant to make an emotional commitment to the stock market and regardless of income activity in January, I think that's still the case," said David Joy, chief market strategist at Columbia Management Advisors in Boston, where he helps oversee $571 billion.

Joy, speaking from a conference in Phoenix, says most of the people asking him about the "great rotation" are fund management industry insiders who are interested in the extra business a flood of stock investors would bring.

He also pointed out that flows into bond funds were positive in the month of January, hardly an indication of a rotation.

Citi's Levkovich also argues that bond investors are unlikely to give up a 30-year rally in bonds so quickly. He said stocks only began to see consistent outflows 26 months after the tech bubble burst in March 2000. By that reading it could be another year before a serious rotation begins.

On top of that, substantial flows continue to make their way into bonds, even if it isn't low-yielding government debt. January 2013 was the second best January on record for the issuance of U.S. high-grade debt, with $111.725 billion issued during the month, according to International Finance Review.

Bill Gross, who runs the $285 billion Pimco Total Return Fund, the world's largest bond fund, commented on Twitter on Thursday that "January flows at Pimco show few signs of bond/stock rotation," adding that cash and money markets may be the source of inflows into stocks.

Indeed, the evidence suggests some of the money that went into stock funds in January came from money markets after a period in December when investors, worried about the budget uncertainty in Washington, started parking money in late 2012.

Data from iMoneyNet shows investors placed $123 billion in money market funds in the last two months of the year. In two weeks in January investors withdrew $31.45 billion of that, the most since March 2012. But later in the month money actually started flowing back.

(Additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Astronaut Jerry Ross Recalls Columbia Shuttle Disaster (Exclusive Video)

The day the shuttle Columbia was lost, along with the seven astronauts inside it, Jerry Ross was standing at the end of the runway, waiting for the spacecraft to touch down.

“They told us that Houston had lost communication with the crew, with the orbiter,” Ross, a retired astronaut who flew on seven space shuttle mission, told SPACE.com in a video interview today (Feb. 1), the 10th anniversary of the accident.

“I didn’t think that was such a big deal because that could have happened for lots of different reasons,” Ross said. “Then they said just shortly after that they’d also lost telemetry. I thought, well, that’s also possible. If you lose comm, you probably lose telemetry. But that was also followed shortly by, they’d lost tracking. And I knew exactly what that meant.”

Ross, who was an astronaut office branch chief at the time, was at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, where Columbia was due to land after a 16-day mission. Damage to its wing during launch, however, caused the orbiter to be destroyed as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere. [Video: Jerry Ross Remembers]

“I stepped outside, said a quiet prayer for my friends, and then called the astronauts that were escorting the crew’s families, over at midfield on the runway, and asked that they get the families back to crew quarters as expeditiously as possible, that we’d probably lost the crew and lost the vehicle,” Ross recalled. “I called back to crew quarters  … and asked them to help secure the facilities, to get security there, to clean up the crew conference room because we’d be bringing the families back there, to get some food and drinks for them, turn off the TVs.”

After a short time, Ross and Bob Cabana, director of Flight Crew Operations at the time, went in to tell the families that their loved ones had likely not survived.

“I spent the next several hours helping to comfort them, helping to collect all their baggage from hotel rooms, arranging for airplanes to fly them back to Houston,” Ross said. “After they had headed home, I wanted to be on one of those airplanes so I could go back to my family.”

Instead, Ross went with a rapid response team to Louisiana, and then Texas, to help develop the plan to recover all the debris from the shuttle that had reached the ground.

“Anything that was crew-related stuff came directly to me before it was passed on to the Kennedy Space Center,” Ross said. “So I saw that debris and knew it was my friends who had had it strapped to their leg, or wore it. Very tough to see the condition that all the hardware was in.”

Ross would spend the next three months there, working on the recovery effort.

Ultimately, he said that NASA did the best it could after the Columbia accident to understand the cause and correct its course. But the devastating disaster’s effects would always be felt.

“Obviously what we do, flying in space, is never going to be totally safe, and if anybody wants to make it totally safe then we’re just going to have to stay on the ground,” he said.

Ross is the author of a new autobiography, “Spacewalker,” (Purdue University Press, January 2013) detailing his career in space.

Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We’re also on Facebook & Google+. 

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Euro rises, shares gain as Europe's outlook brightens

LONDON (Reuters) - The euro hit a fresh 14-month high and European stocks gained on Friday after economic data raised hopes that the region's downturn has eased, but moves were limited as investors await a U.S. jobs report.

Euro zone factories had their best month in nearly a year during January although the currency bloc is likely to remain mired in recession for a few more months, the latest reading of Markit's Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) showed.

"Providing there are no further setbacks to the region's debt crisis, these data add to the expectation that the euro zone is on course to return to growth by mid-2013," said Chris Williamson, chief economist at data compiler Markit.

The euro hit a high of $1.3657 after the data came out, its highest level since November 2011. The common currency also hit a 33-month high against the yen, rising more than 1 percent to 125.96 yen.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> extended its recent gains by 0.4 percent to 1,169.14 points, near a 23-month high after solid rally since the start of the year. London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> were up between 0.5 and 0.8 percent.

Earlier, China's official PMI for January eased to 50.4, missing market expectations for a rise and underscoring the fragility of the recovery from the economy's weakest year since 1999.

However, a separate private survey showed that growth in China's giant manufacturing sector hit a two-year high in January as domestic demand strengthened, underlining hopes the nation's economic recovery is slowly gaining momentum.

The Chinese data left MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> little changed

EURO STRENGTH

The euro has risen significantly in recent weeks as the outlook for the 17-nation currency bloc has improved, and also as investors respond to the sharply easier monetary policies of the U.S. Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan.

"The perception is that the ECB is being less supportive and is not providing as much liquidity as the other central banks are," said Andrew Milligan, head of Global Strategy at Standard Life Investments.

At the same time liquidity in the European money markets is being affected by quicker-than-expected repayments of crisis loans handed out by the ECB at the height of the bloc's crisis just over a year ago.

Banks have another two years to pay back the money if they want, but have taken the opportunity this week to return over a quarter of the 489 billion euros ($663.77 billion) they took in the first of the ECB's two "LTRO" handouts.

From now on they can pay back as little or as much of the remaining money as they want each week. After the fast start, analysts are awaiting Friday's details of next week's repayments for clues on whether the pace is likely to continue.

Money market rates have already risen by a quarter of a percentage point since the start the year - the equivalent of a standard ECB interest rate increase - and are likely climb by at least the same amount again if the money continues to drain rapidly from the system.

For Europe's struggling countries and the ECB this is not an ideal situation, effectively tightening monetary policy and creating unwanted stress just as economies are showing fragile signs of improvement.

JOBS EYED

Friday's U.S. nonfarm payrolls data due at 8:30 a.m. ET could be a another factor to drive the euro higher, as a strong report would knock the safe-haven dollar.

The dollar was trading at a 3-1/2 month low against a basket of currencies <.dxy> on Friday after falling 0.3 percent to 78.97 points.

Employers are expected to have added 160,000 new jobs to their payrolls in January, a marginal step up from December's 155,000 gain, according to a Reuters survey of economists. The unemployment rate is seen holding steady at 7.8 percent.

The U.S. economy unexpectedly contracted in the fourth quarter, its weakest performance since emerging from recession in 2009, and it grew just 2.2 percent in the whole of 2012.

The U.S. ISM factory survey, a national report on the state of American manufacturers, is also due at 10 a.m. ET.

(Additional reporting by Marc Jones,; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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Build Your Own Moon: Online Lunar Game Nabs Honors

An online game that allows players to build their own moon and sculpt its features has won big praise in science art competition.

The game, called “Selene: A Lunar Construction GaME,” measures how and when players learn as they discover more about how the Earth’s moon formed and, by extension, the solar system. It received an honorable mention in the 2012 International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge, the journal Science announced today (Jan. 31).

As players experiment with the game, they learn more about one of the easiest heavenly bodies they can study, Selene developers said.

“The moon is the only body in the entire universe that we on Earth can look at with the unaided eye,” Debbie Denise Reese, principle investigator of the overarching Cyberlearning through Game-based, Metaphor Enhanced Learning Objectives (CyGaMEs) project, told SPACE.com. “When they look at the moon, players are seeing what actually created those features.”

No longer are the dark plains and overlapping craters a mystery.

“It makes moon observations more meaningful,” Reese said.

Build your own moon

Named for the Greek goddess of the moon, Selene works in two parts. In the first round, players aim asteroids of varying sizes, densities, and radiations so that they collide with one another. Too much force, and the rocks ricochet off one another. [How Earth's Moon Formed (Video)]

But even if you overshoot your target, the gravity of the growing moon may tug just enough to pull the new piece into the pack, giving participants a chance to watch accretion in action. The developing moon is constantly compared to the real-life one, and players strive to make as close a match as possible.

After all of the small asteroids have melted together to form a smooth new moon, it’s time to scratch up the surface. Players can aim asteroids of varying sizes at the body, and select areas where lava breaks through the crust. Again, the time range is compared to Earth‘s moon, with spikes and dips in bombardment and lava flow that the player must work to emulate.

 ”Playing Selene could be tied to eyeball observations of the moon at night,” Charles ‘Chuck’ Wood, Executive Director of the center for Educational Technologies at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia, told SPACE.com by email.

“The dark smudges and bright pinpricks would become understandable as massive lava flows and impact craters because the player had virtually created the same features.”

With almost 50 years of planetary science experience, Wood served as the content expert for the project. According to Reese, one of the goals was “to transfer what’s inside his head into procedural activities that players can do.”

Because the accretion and surface-sculpting processes for the moon echo that of the rest of the planets, players also develop an understanding of how the early solar system formed.[New Ideas About the Moon-Forming Impact (Video)]

As kids ages nine and up engage in the game, they build concrete knowledge that can be applied into any learning environment that they later experience, a process that serves to make learning more intuitive, according to Reese.

Though the game is effective for high school and college students, and slanted to match the national standards for those age ranges, Reese said that it was more attractive to middle school students. By the time students hit upper educational levels, they are either more focused directly on their studies, or more attracted by high-action games, such as first person shooters.

But when it comes to 9- to- 14-year-olds, Reese said, “they just eat this up.”

Learning about learning

As players engage in discovering just how a moon is shaped, Reese and other scientists are engaged in finding out more about how those players learn. One of the primary goals of Selene is to allow Reese and her team to analyze the learning process. That means the game requires a login, and for minors, parental permission must be given.

Although a thorough analyzation takes time, Reese was able to provide a quick overview of my game play while I spoke to her by phone, something I wasn’t expecting. She took the time to analyze how quickly I learned from my failures, and point out not only where I struggled but also when I was immersed in the game.

“I wasn’t with you, but I can tell from looking at your data what your experiences were,” she said.

That under-the-hood ability to study learning is why the project was so attractive in terms of funding to NASA and the National Science Foundation, Reese said.

The idea for Selene first took hold in the summer of 2006, and a prototype of the game was developed by CyGaMEs in May of 2007. The first version was released in 2010. But the game is constantly being improved as the understanding of the learning process grows. The team is also looking at expanding it to mobile platforms in the near future.

“The knowledge that we receive through the CyGaMEs project and using Selene as a research environment helps us to create instructional games across all disciplines,” Reese said.

But that knowledge wasn’t something that could be directly demonstrated to the 2012 International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge, hosted by the National Science Foundation and the journal Science. Created to emphasize and encourage the growth of science in more visual mediums for education and media purposes, the competition has five categories, one of which is Games & Apps, where Selene placed. There were no first place awards in the Games & Apps category, only honorable mentions.

Both Reese and Wood were excited not only about the award but about the exposure it would provide.

“The recognition is of course a great honor and encouragement — but more importantly, may drive more players to the website so that we can collect more data,” Wood said.

Reese agreed. “To have the success that we’ve had and be able to get the word out is really a great opportunity.”

More players, of course, means more information that can be gathered about how participants learn.

At the same time, more people can learn about how the moon formed, growing their understanding of the nearest celestial body.

“It has been rewarding to see students from elementary to college age understand and talk about lunar processes at a much higher level of understanding than in any textbook,” Wood said.

To learn more about the Selene game, and build your own moon, visit: http://selene.cet.edu/

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German jitters hit European shares, euro

LONDON (Reuters) - European shares fell for a second straight day and the euro halted its recent rally, as weak German retail sales and poor earnings at its biggest bank added to investors' nerves after a shock fourth quarter contraction in the U.S. economy.

Data on Wednesday showed U.S. GDP slipped back 0.1 percent, though the country's central bank, the Federal Reserve, indicated the pullback was likely to be brief as it repeated its pledge to continue providing support.

European shares, which have surged 3.7 percent this month, took their biggest daily hit of the year on Wednesday, and a plunge in German retail sales, stagnant French consumer spending and a huge quarterly loss at Deutsche Bank dashed hopes of a quick rebound.

The mood blackened through the morning, leaving London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> down 0.3 to 0.6 percent by 5:15 a.m. ET. The MSCI world share index <.miwd00000pus> was down 0.1 percent despite shares in Asia posting modest gains. <.l><.eu><.n/>

"Perhaps the German retail sales have contributed a little bit, but we knew that Q4 was weak, so I would it attribute it more to earnings news," said Chris Scicluna, an economist at Daiwa Capital Markets.

"The Deutsche Bank loss does look to be on the sizable side. There has clearly been some mismatch between financial markets and the real economy so that does lend itself to a bit of a pullback."

In the currency market, the German jitters also put the euro under pressure and halted its recent 4 percent rally.

It had started to show signs of stabilization by mid-morning but remained well short of Wednesday's 14-month high of $1.3588 at $1.3560. The Federal Reserve's promise of continued support was widely expected to mitigate the fall, however, by keeping downward pressure on the dollar.

Evidence of that pull was seen as the dollar slipped 0.2 percent against the yen to 90.88 yen, having hit its strongest level since 2010 on Wednesday. Market focus now turns to Friday's monthly U.S. employment report.

PULL-BACK

The nervy market atmosphere also pushed up Spanish and Italian government bond yields as some investors switched from higher-yielding debt into German Bunds.

Spanish 10-year yields rose 10 basis points on the day to 5.31 percent, while equivalent Italian debt rose 10 bps to 4.38 percent.

German Bund futures were half a point higher, spurred on by the Fed's determination to maintain its policy of stimulus for the U.S. economy.

The downbeat European mood also began to creep into commodities markets, though investors seemed broadly happy to stick with the bigger picture view that the global economy is gradually regaining strength.

Risky assets such as equities, commodities, and high-yield debt have risen sharply in the past six months as growth in emerging economies like China has picked up and fears of a collapse of the euro have been calmed by the European Central Bank.

Spot gold drifted down to $1,675 an ounce, having hit a one-week high on Wednesday, while oil prices inched down 23 cents to just under $115 per barrel, still well above their starting price this year of $110 a barrel.

And there was no sign of weakness in growth-attuned copper as it marched to its highest level since October.

"We are still quite confident about a Chinese copper demand recovery in the first half, and we have seen evidence of pent-up demand, so the downside risk is limited," said Henry Liu, head of commodity research at Mirae Asset Securities in Hong Kong.

"But exceeding $8,500 this year might be a challenge, because domestic inventories are quite high," he added.

(Additional reporting by Richard Hubbard and Melanie Burton in Singapore; Editing by Will Waterman)

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Liftoff! NASA Launches Next-Generation Relay Satellite into Space

This story was updated at 10:46 p.m. ET.

A next-generation NASA relay satellite was launched into orbit Wednesday (Jan. 30) on a mission to upgrade a vital communications network linking the space agency to its spacecraft orbiting the Earth.

The U.S. space agency’s first launch of 2013, the new Tracking and Data Relay Satellite K (TDRS-K for short) soared spaceward atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 8:48 p.m. EST (0148 Jan. 31 GMT).

“We have a customer that’s quite thrilled right now to have a healthy satellite on orbit,” Tim Dunn the TDRS-K flight director said in a NASA TV interview after the launch.

The TDRS-K satellite is bound for an orbit 22,300 miles (35,888 kilometers) above Earth, where it will join a constellation of five other satellites currently in orbit to help NASA and other space agencies stay in touch with orbiting spacecraft.

NASA’s TDRS communications network began in 1983 and has not received an upgrade since 2002, when the space agency launched its 10th TDRS satellite. Five satellites are currently in use today, with the TDRS-K launch adding one more that number, mission managers said. [Launch Photos: NASA's TDRS-K Satellite Blasts Off ]

The TDRS-K satellite is expected to spend at least 15 years, but agency officials expect that the satellite will exceed its projected life-expectancy. Many of the network’s satellites have outlived their expected mission lifetimes,  said Jeffrey Gramling, NASA’s TDRS project manager.

But that does not mean that TDRS-K is unnecessary. One of the satellites currently in active service is slated be retired in the next few months, and other satellites in the aging network are getting older, said Badri Younes, a scientist in NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation office.

The satellite launched today was the first of three new satellites expected to enter service between now and 2015 that should further bolster the network. The TDRS-K mission costs between $ 350 million and $ 400 million, not including the price of its rocket.

The TDRS-K satellite is 26 feet long (8 meters) and weighs about 7,615 pounds (3,454 kilograms). It was expected to separate from its Atlas 5 rocket one hour and 46 minutes after liftoff, with a Centaur upper stage rocket engine slated to carry it the rest of the way to its geosynchronous orbit.

The satellite is expected to deploy its solar arrays and giant antennas about 11 days after launch, according to a mission description.  

NASA’s TDRS satellite network is part of the larger “Space Network” used keep space agencies on the ground in constant communication with orbiting spacecraft. The International Space Station sends all of its data and messages through the network using the TDRS satellites. The rocket that sent TDRS-K into orbit even uses the space network to beam down data, Vernon Thorp, a program manager with NASA said.

TDRS-K is now entering into a three month period of testing and calibrations, but once those tests are complete the NASA research team will decide if the satellite is ready for service. 

Follow Miriam Kramer on Twitter @mirikramer or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We’re also on Facebook & Google+. 

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Euro surges to 14-month high, Fed decision awaited

LONDON (Reuters) - The euro hit its highest level in over a year on Wednesday and shares, oil and metals were also on the rise, as confidence in the global economic outlook strengthened ahead of European data and the U.S. Federal Reserve's latest policy decision.

The Fed is expected to maintain asset buying at $85 billion a month when it concludes its meeting later and retain its commitment to hold interest rates near zero until unemployment falls to at least 6.5 percent.

European economic confidence data for January at 1000 GMT, ECB crisis loan repayments and Italy's sale of five and 10-year bonds will absorb most of investors' attention before then, as they look for further evidence of a pick-up in the region.

Share markets in London, Paris and Frankfurt opened little changed ahead of the data, leaving all eyes on a rally by the euro as it broke above $1.35 for the first time since December 2011.

Alongside the recent rebound in confidence in the euro zone, one of the drivers behind the recent spike has been the eagerness of banks to repay the crisis loans they took from the European Central Bank just over a year ago.

"It (the euro rise) is just a carry on with the current trend, risk is pretty healthy and equities are doing well," said Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi strategist Derek Halpenny.

"The danger is European policymakers allow a spike (in euro and market rates) as a result of a removal of one of the principle support measures ... With the Fed and the BOJ still easing the euro is clearly the path of least resistance."

An earlier rise in Asian equities meant the MSCI world share index was up 0.2 percent at a new 21-month high as European trading gathered pace. U.S. stock futures suggested a cautious start on Wall Street.

Strong U.S. housing data on Tuesday and China's promising economic growth forecast for 2013 also supported the upbeat mood and raised expectations for robust demand for fuel and industrial commodities, underpinning oil prices and lifting copper.

In the bond market, German Bund futures opened lower as investors made room for a sale of long-dated German paper and braced for solid demand at an Italian debt auction.

Italy will offer up to 6.5 billion euros of bonds maturing in 2017 and 2022. Traders expect the sale to benefit from yield-hungry investors but flagged the risk of indigestion after a bout of buying in recent months that triggered a sharp rally.

"(The auction) probably (goes) alright but I don't think it trades well afterwards," one trader said.

(Additional reporting by Ana Nicolaci da Costa; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Severe storms pummel central US, Southern states

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A large storm system packing high winds, thunderstorms and the threat of tornadoes is continuing its sweep across several Southern and central U.S. states.

Emergency management officials say the large storm front blacked out thousands in Arkansas and has caused scattered power outages in northern Mississippi. At least one person was reported injured by lightning in Arkansas.

Jeff Rent at the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency urged residents to be on guard for severe thunderstorms, high winds and possible twisters. Tennessee and other states also were on guard Wednesday.

Rent says some houses have been damaged and trees and power lines felled as the brunt of the storm was felt in four Mississippi counties overnight. The storm is set to sweep toward the Eastern seaboard in coming hours.

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Obama says he'll sign $50.5B Sandy aid bill soon

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said he'll sign a $50.5 billion emergency relief measure for Superstorm Sandy victims as soon as it lands on his desk.

Three months after Sandy ravaged coastal areas in much of the Northeast, Obama chided lawmakers for taking their time to approve the funding even as he commended them for providing the long-awaited aid.

"So while I had hoped Congress would provide this aid sooner, I applaud the lawmakers from both parties who helped shepherd this important package though," Obama said in a statement late Monday.

Despite opposition from conservatives concerned about adding billions of dollars to the nation's debt, the Senate cleared the bill, 62-36, after House Republicans had stripped it earlier this month of spending unrelated to disasters.

"This is a huge relief," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

Northeast lawmakers said the money is urgently needed to start rebuilding homes, businesses, public transportation facilities and other infrastructure damaged by the Oct. 29 storm, one of the worst to strike the Northeast. Sandy is blamed for more than 130 deaths in the U.S. and tens of billions of dollars in property damages, particularly in New York and New Jersey.

The measure is aimed primarily at helping residents and businesses as well as state and local governments rebuild from the storm. The biggest chunk of money is $16 billion for Housing and Urban Development Department community block grants. Of that, about $12.1 billion will be shared among Sandy victims as well as those from other federally declared disasters in 2011-13. The remaining $3.9 billion is solely for Sandy-related projects.

More than $11 billion will go to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief aid fund for Sandy and other disasters. Another $10 billion is devoted to repairing New York and New Jersey transit systems.

Earlier in January, Congress approved and Obama signed a $9.7 billion bill to replenish the National Flood Insurance Program, which has received well over 100,000 claims related to Sandy. Added to the new, $50.5 billion package, the total is roughly in line with the $60.4 billion Obama requested in December.

The aid package was greased for passage before the last Congress adjourned and the new one came in on Jan. 3. But Speaker John Boehner refused to bring it to the floor after two-thirds of House Republicans voted against a "fiscal cliff" deficit-reduction deal raising taxes on couples making more than $450,000 a year while deferring some $24 billion in spending cuts in defense and domestic programs.

The ruckus after the Senate had passed an earlier $60.4 billion Sandy relief package by a nearly 2-to-1 margin on Dec. 28 exposed deep political divisions within Republican ranks. "There's only one group to blame for the continued suffering of these innocent victims: the House majority and their speaker, John Boehner," Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie fumed at the time.

Top House Republicans responded by bringing new Sandy aid legislation to the floor under ground rules designed to win over as many Republicans as possible while retaining support from Democrats eager to approve as much in disaster aid as possible.

GOP leaders cut spending in the Senate bill unrelated to disasters. One was to transfer $1 billion from training programs for Iraqi policemen to bolstering security at U.S. diplomatic missions. The shift in money followed a Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Also deleted was $188 million for an Amtrak expansion project that included new, long-planned tunnels from New Jersey to Penn Station in Manhattan.

As with past natural disasters, the Sandy aid bill is not offset with spending cuts, meaning the aid adds to the deficit. The lone exception is an offset provision requiring that $3.4 billion for Army Corps of Engineers projects to protect against future storms be covered by an equal amount of unspecified spending cuts in other programs before next October.

The Senate on Monday rejected, 35-62, an attempt by conservatives to amend the final package with an offset provision to cut federal programs across the board by one-half of 1 percent through 2021.

___

Associated Press writer Josh Lederman contributed to this report.

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Iran Launches Monkey Into Space: Reports

Iranian space officials announced Monday (Jan. 28) that they have successfully launched a live monkey into space, inching closer to the Islamic republic‘s goal of a manned mission, according to news reports.

The space capsule, called Pishgam, which means “pioneer” in Farsi, reportedly returned the monkey alive after a suborbital flight to space and back, according to Iranian news agencies.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has sent a monkey into space aboard an indigenous bio-capsule as a prelude to sending humans into space,” the the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Space officials in the country have previously said that they hope to send a human into space by 2020 and put an astronaut on the moon by 2025.

Iran’s defense minister, Ahmad Vahidi, told state TV that the success “paves the way for other moves,” according to Agence-France Presse.

“The monkey which was sent in this launch landed safely and alive and this is a big step for our experts and scientists,” Vahidi said.

Iran failed in a 2011 effort to launch a live monkey into space. News reports out of the country at the time did not explain what went wrong, but the plan had been to send a rhesus monkey into orbit atop a Kavoshgar-5 rocket.

Iran has made progress in spaceflight technology in recent years. The country sent its first domestically built satellite into space in February 2009 and launched a Kavoshagar-3 rocket in 2010 that delivered a rat, two turtles and a worm into space. Iran also sent Earth-observing satellites into orbit in 2011 and 2012.

Western critics have expressed concern over the potential military applications of Iran’s rocket program, since boosters developed to reach space could also be used as long-range ballistic missiles. The Islamic republic has denied such ambitions for its space program.

In the early days of spaceflight for the United States and the Soviet Union, animals were used to test the safety and feasibility of launching a living being into space and bringing it back unharmed.

A rhesus monkey named Albert I was the first monkey astronaut. He was launched aboard a U.S. military V-2 rocket from White Sands, New Mexico, in June 1948, but suffocated and died during the flight. A monkey named Yorick was the first monkey to live through a spaceflight. Yorick and 11 mice were recovered after an Aerobee missile flight of 236,000 feet from Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, in September 1951.

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Stock index futures signal slight gains

PARIS (Reuters) - Stock index futures pointed to a slightly higher open on Wall Street on Monday, with futures for the S&P 500 up 0.04 percent, Dow Jones futures up 0.18 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.01 percent at 1023 GMT (0523ET)

Rallies in European shares and the region's single currency stalled on Monday following brisk gains last week as investors awaited confirmation that financial market conditions and the outlook for the euro area have improved.

Activist investor Carl Icahn on Friday pushed offshore driller Transocean to declare a dividend of at least $4 per share and said if it does not, he will propose it at the company's next annual meeting, according to a regulatory filing.

US Airways Group Inc and American Airlines parent AMR Corp are in the final stages of negotiating a merger, with the final price and management structure still to be resolved, four people familiar with the matter said.

Johnson & Johnson is shopping a business that makes women's products such as Stayfree and Carefree pads, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the process.

BlackRock , the world's largest asset management company, has taken an $80 million stake in Twitter Inc, a person with knowledge of the deal said Friday. The six-year old social media company will not raise new capital as part of the private deal that values the firm at more than $9 billion. BlackRock will buy shares directly from early Twitter employees seeking to liquidate their stock holdings and options.

Viacom Inc , parent of cable networks MTV and Nickelodeon and movie studio Paramount Pictures, paid Chief Executive Philippe Dauman about $10 million less in 2012 than a year earlier, a regulatory filing showed.

The world's biggest coffee chain Starbucks Corp denied it had threatened to suspend investment in Britain in protest over perceived government criticism of its tax affairs.

On the earnings front, companies such as Yahoo , Caterpillar and Plum Creek Timber are set to report results while on the macro side, investors awaited December durable goods orders, due at 1330 GMT, as well as pending home sales for December, due at 1500 GMT.

Toyota Motor Corp regained the crown as the world's top selling automaker in 2012, posting record-high sales and beating rivals General Motors and Volkswagen .

The Standard & Poor's 500 index closed above 1,500 for the first time in more than five years on Friday as strong U.S. earnings reports, including Procter & Gamble's, helped the benchmark extend its rally to eight days.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 70.65 points or 0.51 percent, to close at 13,895.98. The S&P 500 <.spx> gained 8.14 points or 0.54 percent, to 1,502.96. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 19.33 points or 0.62 percent, to end at 3,149.71.

(Reporting by Blaise Robinson; Editing by Catherine Evans)

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Energy-Guzzling Cities Changing Weather 1,000 Miles Away

The heat released by everyday activities in energy-guzzling cities is changing the weather in far-away places, scientists report today (Jan. 27).

The released heat is changing temperatures in areas more than 1,000 miles away (1609 kilometers). It is warming parts of North America by about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 degrees Celsius) and northern Asia by as much as 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius), while cooling areas of Europe by a similar amount, scientists report in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The released heat (dubbed waste heat), it seems, is changing atmospheric circulation, including jet streams — powerful narrow currents of wind that blow from west to east and north to south in the upper atmosphere. 

This impact on regional temperatures may explain a climate puzzle of sorts: why some areas are having warmer winters than predicted by climate models, the researchers said. In turn, the results suggest this phenomenon should be accounted for in models forecasting global warming.

“There’s a tendency in climate science to overlook the effects of cities,” Brian Stone, a professor of city and regional planning at Georgia Tech, told LiveScience. “Cities occupy just a few percent of the global land surface, but the amount of energy released as waste heat is contributing downwind to pretty significant changes in climate. I hope this will encourage us to focus more on cities as important drivers of climate change,” added Stone, who was not involved in the current study. [8 Ways Global Warming Is Already Changing the World]

Hot in the city

Cities are known to be warmer than their surroundings due to what’s known as the urban heat island effect — pavement, buildings and other building materials retain heat, preventing it from reradiating into the sky.

In the new study, the researchers looked at another kind of “urban heat,” this one produced directly by transportation, heating and cooling units, and other energy-consuming activities.

“The burning of fossil fuel not only emits greenhouse gases, but also directly affects temperatures because of heat that escapes from sources like buildings and cars,” said study researcher Aixue Hu, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), in a statement. “Although much of this waste heat is concentrated in large cities, it can change atmospheric patterns in a way that raises or lowers temperatures across considerable distances.”

Hu and colleagues studied the energy effect using the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) model, a widely used climate model that takes into account the effects of greenhouse gases, topography, oceans, ice and global weather. The researchers ran the model with and without the input of human energy consumption, to see whether it could account for large-scale regional warming.

When man-made energy was included in the model, it led to winter and autumn temperature changes of up to 1.8 degrees F (1 degree C) in mid- and high-latitude parts of North America and Eurasia. The modeling is based on estimates, however, and more studies are needed to measure how much heat is actually released by urban areas.

Heat disrupts jet stream

Here’s how the scientists think it works: Energy-hungry metropolitan areas are located on the east and west coasts of North America and Eurasia, beneath major “hot spots” of atmospheric circulation. The waste heat from these cities creates thermal mountains, or taller-than-normal columns of heated air, which cause air jets moving eastward to deflect northward and southward.

As a result, the jet stream in upper latitudes widens and strengthens, bringing up hot air from the south and causing warming far from the urban areas (and concurrent cooling in others).

“The energy consumption in highly populated areas can cause changes in wind patterns, and that causes climate change far away from the heating source,” said meteorologist and study author Ming Cai of Florida State University.

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Wall Street Week Ahead: Bears hibernate as stocks near record highs

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks have been on a tear in January, moving major indexes within striking distance of all-time highs. The bearish case is a difficult one to make right now.

Earnings have exceeded expectations, the housing and labor markets have strengthened, lawmakers in Washington no longer seem to be the roadblock that they were for most of 2012, and money has returned to stock funds again.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> has gained 5.4 percent this year and closed above 1,500 - climbing to the spot where Wall Street strategists expected it to be by mid-year. The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> is 2.2 percent away from all-time highs reached in October 2007. The Dow ended Friday's session at 13,895.98, its highest close since October 31, 2007.

The S&P has risen for four straight weeks and eight consecutive sessions, the longest streak of days since 2004. On Friday, the benchmark S&P 500 ended at 1,502.96 - its first close above 1,500 in more than five years.

"Once we break above a resistance level at 1,510, we dramatically increase the probability that we break the highs of 2007," said Walter Zimmermann, technical analyst at United-ICAP, in Jersey City, New Jersey. "That may be the start of a rise that could take equities near 1,800 within the next few years."

The most recent Reuters poll of Wall Street strategists estimated the benchmark index would rise to 1,550 by year-end, a target that is 3.1 percent away from current levels. That would put the S&P 500 a stone's throw from the index's all-time intraday high of 1,576.09 reached on October 11, 2007.

The new year has brought a sharp increase in flows into U.S. equity mutual funds, and that has helped stocks rack up four straight weeks of gains, with strength in big- and small-caps alike.

That's not to say there aren't concerns. Economic growth has been steady, but not as strong as many had hoped. The household unemployment rate remains high at 7.8 percent. And more than 75 percent of the stocks in the S&P 500 are above their 26-week highs, suggesting the buying has come too far, too fast.

MUTUAL FUND INVESTORS COME BACK

All 10 S&P 500 industry sectors are higher in 2013, in part because of new money flowing into equity funds. Investors in U.S.-based funds committed $3.66 billion to stock mutual funds in the latest week, the third straight week of big gains for the funds, data from Thomson Reuters' Lipper service showed on Thursday.

Energy shares <.5sp10> lead the way with a gain of 6.6 percent, followed by industrials <.5sp20>, up 6.3 percent. Telecom <.5sp50>, a defensive play that underperforms in periods of growth, is the weakest sector - up 0.1 percent for the year.

More than 350 stocks hit new highs on Friday alone on the New York Stock Exchange. The Dow Jones Transportation Average <.djt> recently climbed to an all-time high, with stocks in this sector and other economic bellwethers posting strong gains almost daily.

"If you peel back the onion a little bit, you start to look at companies like Precision Castparts , Honeywell , 3M Co and Illinois Tool Works - these are big, broad-based industrial companies in the U.S. and they are all hitting new highs, and doing very well. That is the real story," said Mike Binger, portfolio manager at Gradient Investments, in Shoreview, Minnesota.

The gains have run across asset sizes as well. The S&P small-cap index <.spcy> has jumped 6.7 percent and the S&P mid-cap index <.mid> has shot up 7.5 percent so far this year.

Exchange-traded funds have seen year-to-date inflows of $15.6 billion, with fairly even flows across the small-, mid- and large-cap categories, according to Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at the ConvergEx Group, in New York.

"Investors aren't really differentiating among asset sizes. They just want broad equity exposure," Colas said.

The market has shown resilience to weak news. On Thursday, the S&P 500 held steady despite a 12 percent slide in shares of Apple after the iPhone and iPad maker's results. The tech giant is heavily weighted in both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 <.ndx> and in the past, its drop has suffocated stocks' broader gains.

JOBS DATA MAY TEST THE RALLY

In the last few days, the ratio of stocks hitting new highs versus those hitting new lows on a daily basis has started to diminish - a potential sign that the rally is narrowing to fewer names - and could be running out of gas.

Investors have also cited sentiment surveys that indicate high levels of bullishness among newsletter writers, a contrarian indicator, and momentum indicators are starting to also suggest the rally has perhaps come too far.

The market's resilience could be tested next week with Friday's release of the January non-farm payrolls report. About 155,000 jobs are seen being added in the month and the unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 7.8 percent.

"Staying over 1,500 sends up a flag of profit taking," said Jerry Harris, president of asset management at Sterne Agee, in Birmingham, Alabama. "Since recent jobless claims have made us optimistic on payrolls, if that doesn't come through, it will be a real risk to the rally."

A number of marquee names will report earnings next week, including bellwether companies such as Caterpillar Inc , Amazon.com Inc , Ford Motor Co and Pfizer Inc .

On a historic basis, valuations remain relatively low - the S&P 500's current price-to-earnings ratio sits at 15.66, which is just a tad above the historic level of 15.

Worries about the U.S. stock market's recent strength do not mean the market is in a bubble. Investors clearly don't feel that way at the moment.

"We're seeing more interest in equities overall, and a lot of flows from bonds into stocks," said Paul Zemsky, who helps oversee $445 billion as the New York-based head of asset allocation at ING Investment Management. "We've been increasing our exposure to risky assets."

For the week, the Dow climbed 1.8 percent, the S&P 500 rose 1.1 percent and the Nasdaq advanced 0.5 percent.

(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Bulgaria holds nuclear power referendum

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Bulgarians are voting in a referendum on whether a new nuclear power plant should be built in the European Union‘s poorest member country, a choice also seen as a barometer of the country’s relationship with Russia.

Sunday’s vote was called by the opposition Socialist party in an effort to force the government to reverse its decision to scrap a deal with Russia on the construction of a second nuclear plant.

Bulgaria’s first referendum since the fall of communism in 1989 has polarized opinion along party lines. It has been seen as a test ahead of general elections in July, but also as a chance to loosen Moscow’s energy grip.

The latest polls estimate a low turnout, which could make the referendum invalid. At least 60 percent of the electorate must take part.

Energy News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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