World stocks rise as Alcoa sees stronger demand

BANGKOK (AP) — World stock markets rose Wednesday after the fourth-quarter earnings season got off to a positive start in the U.S. with aluminum giant Alcoa forecasting higher demand for 2013.
Demand for aluminum has been hurt by the weak global economy, but Alcoa predicted a 7 percent increase in demand this year, slightly better than the 6 percent increase in 2012. Because Alcoa makes aluminum for so many key industries, investors study its results for clues about the health and direction of the overall economy.
"Regional markets are mostly firmer after the Alcoa result set the tone early in Asia," said Stan Shamu of IG Markets in Melbourne in a market commentary. "Alcoa's results are generally considered a bellwether for the global economy and the fact that the aluminum giant forecasts higher demand in 2013 appeased investors."
European stocks rose in early trading. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.4 percent to 6,075.35. Germany's DAX added 0.3 percent to 7,720.34. France's CAC-40 rose 0.4 percent to 3,721.74.
Wall Street appeared headed for gains, with Dow Jones industrial futures up 0.2 percent at 13,291 and S&P 500 futures rising 0.2 percent to 1,454.70.
In Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 0.5 percent to 23,218.47 after a downturn in the prior session, with sentiment helped by gains in mainland Chinese shares.
"Stability in China is helping. We are taking a lot of cues from China-Asia," said Jackson Wong, vice president of Tanrich Securities in Hong Kong.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index opened lower on a strengthening yen but reversed course as the currency slipped against the dollar. The benchmark in Tokyo gained 0.7 percent to close at 10,578.57.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 added 0.4 percent to 4,708.10. South Korea's Kopsi was 0.3 percent lower at 1,991.20. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and the Philippines rose. Indonesia and Malaysia fell. Mainland Chinese stocks were mixed.
Analysts at Capital Economics said in a market commentary that "2013 has begun with more optimism about prospects for the global economy."
Among individual stocks, shares of Australian company Alumina Ltd., a joint venture partner of Alcoa, jumped 4.6 percent. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. rose 5 percent in Tokyo. Hong Kong-listed China Railway Group rose 5.1 percent.
Major indexes surged last week after U.S. lawmakers passed a bill to avoid a combination of government spending cuts and tax increases that have come to be known as the fiscal cliff. The deal, however, remains incomplete, and trading has been cautious since then. Politicians will face another deadline in two months to agree on more spending cuts.
U.S. stocks closed lower Tuesday, before Alcoa's earnings report was released.
Benchmark crude for February delivery was down 16 cents to $92.98 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 4 cents to close at $93.15 per barrel on the Nymex on Tuesday.
In currencies, the euro rose slightly to $1.3085 from $1.3084 Tuesday in New York. The dollar rose to 87.62 yen from 87.19 yen.

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Futures rise as earnings season begins in the US

NEW YORK (AP) — Stock futures are rising after a pair of U.S. companies opened the earnings season with a surprisingly strong start.
Dow Jones industrial futures are up 13 points to 13,280. The broader S&P futures have added 0.80 points to 1,435.10. Nasdaq futures are up 0.25 points to 2,714.25.
After markets closed Tuesday, Alcoa predicted rising demand for its aluminum this year and topped revenue expectations for the fourth quarter. Earlier in the day, agricultural giant Monsanto said its profit tripled and raised its guidance for 2013.
Alcoa's outlook, which could hint at a broader economic recovery, helped to buoy markets overseas Wednesday.
Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.4 percent, Germany's DAX added 0.3 percent and France's CAC-40 rose 0.4 percent. In Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 0.5 percent.

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Stocks open higher for first day in three

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks rose on Wall Street in early trading Wednesday after U.S. corporate earnings reports got off to a strong start.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 75 points to 13,403 after the first hour of trading. The Dow is coming off of two days of losses.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose six to 1,463 and the Nasdaq composite rose 16 to 3,108.
Alcoa predicted rising demand for aluminum this year as the aerospace industry gains strength. Late Tuesday the company reported fourth-quarter revenue that beat analysts' forecasts. Investors pay close attention to Alcoa's results and forecasts because the aluminum it makes is used in so many industries including construction and manufacturing.
Consumer products maker Helen of Troy, whose brands include Dr. Scholl's, Vicks and Fabreze, rose 71 cents to $34.24 after reporting a 15 percent increase in net income.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was unchanged at 1.87 percent. The dollar edged higher against the euro and crude oil rose 13 cents to $93.28 a barrel.
European markets also rose. Benchmark indexes rose 1 percent in Britain and 2 percent in Italy. Germany's DAX rose 0.4 percent and France's CAC-40 rose 0.3 percent.
Among other stocks making big moves:
— Wireless network operator Clearwire jumped 22 cents to $3.14 after Dish network made an unsolicited offer to buy the company, which has already agreed to sell itself to Sprint. Dish rose 95 cents to $36.91 and Sprint fell 10 cents to $5.87.
— Online education company Apollo Group plunged 10 percent after reporting a sharp decline in fall-term student sign-ups at the University of Phoenix. The stock fell $2.12 to $18.82.

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Saban quickly turns to challenges of 2013 season

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — It's becoming a familiar January scene for Nick Saban.
The Alabama coach plastered a smile on his face for a series of posed photos next to the various trophies awarded to college football's national champions and then proceeded to talk about the challenges facing his team.
Maybe Saban let the Gatorade dry from the celebratory drenching before thinking about the 2013 season. Maybe.
"The team next year is 0-0," Saban, who is on a 61-7 run over the past five seasons, said Tuesday morning. "Even though I really appreciate what this team accomplished and am very, very proud of what they accomplished, we need to prepare for the challenges of the new season very quickly with the team we have coming back. "
It didn't take Saban long to refocus after Monday night's 42-14 demolition of Notre Dame that secured a second straight BCS title, the Crimson Tide's third in four seasons and the seventh straight for Southeastern Conference teams.
Shortly after the game, he was already talking about getting back to the office by Wednesday morning.
Alabama players, meanwhile, finally were able to voice the "D-word." Center Barrett Jones said he had a Sports Illustrated cover from a couple of years ago after his last college game.
"It says, 'Dynasty. Can anybody stop Alabama?' I'll never forget looking at that thing and wondering if we really could be a dynasty," said Jones, who mainly put it on the wall because he's featured. "I think three out of four, I'm no dynasty expert, but that seems like a dynasty to me. I guess I can say that now that I'm gone. Don't tell coach I said that."
The 2013 team will almost certainly be regarded among the preseason favorites to get back to the summit, even though three Tide stars — tailback Eddie Lacy, cornerback Dee Milliner and right tackle D.J. Fluker — could decide to skip their senior seasons and turn pro.
Saban also emphatically tried to end speculation that he might return to the NFL, where he spent two years with the Miami Dolphins before returning to the SEC.
It was a question that really made him bristle during the 30-plus minute news conference.
"How many times do you think I've been asked to put it to rest?" Saban said. "And I've put it to rest, and you continue to ask it. So I'm going to say it today, that — you know, I think somewhere along the line you've got to choose. You learn a lot from the experiences of what you've done in the past. I came to the Miami Dolphins, what, eight years ago for the best owner, the best person that I've ever had the opportunity to work for. And in the two years that I was here, I had a very, very difficult time thinking that I could impact the organization in the way that I wanted to or the way that I was able to in college, and it was very difficult for me."
He said that experience taught him that the college ranks "is where I belong, and I'm really happy and at peace with all that."
As for the players, All-America linebacker C.J. Mosley has already said he'll return. So has quarterback AJ McCarron, who had his second straight star turn in a BCS title game.
"We certainly have to build the team around him," Saban said, adding that a late-game spat with Jones showed the quarterback's competitive fire. "I've talked a lot about it's difficult to play quarterback when you don't have good players around you. I think we should have, God willing and everybody staying healthy, a pretty good receiver corps. We'll have to do some rebuilding in the offensive line. Regardless of what Eddie decides to do, we'll probably still have some pretty decent runners. But I think AJ can be a really good player, maybe the best quarterback in the country next year."
The biggest question mark is replacing three, maybe four, starters on an offensive line that paved the way.
Amari Cooper, who broke several of Julio Jones' Alabama freshman receiving marks, and fellow freshman running back T.J. Yeldon give McCarron and the Tide a couple of potent weapons, even if Lacy doesn't return.
"I am going to try to win three or four," said Cooper, who had 105 yards and two touchdowns in the title game. "This season was good, but I expected it to be even more. There is so much more that I can do."
Saban emphasized the difficulty of repeating and said he showed the players a video of NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan saying that the first title isn't the hardest — it's the ones after that.
That's because, Saban said, "you have to have the will to fight against yourself."
Now, the 'Bama coach has four titles, including one during his stop at LSU. Saban doesn't wear the championship rings but uses them for a different purpose.
"I just put them on the coffee table for the recruits to look at," he said, cracking up the room.
Saban has already lined up another highly rated recruiting class and has the next wave of young talents waiting in the wings.
After all, he talked about the sign mentor Bill Belichick hung in the football building during their NFL days together: "Do your job."
Saban jokingly acknowledged that while he prepares for everything, the one thing he has never been able to anticipate is the Gatorade bath. He drew heat for a scowl after the first one, following the title game win over Texas when he got dinged in the head. Monday night's dousing went better.
"It's cold, it's sticky, but I appreciated not getting hit in the head with the bucket," Saban said. "That was an improvement."
No program has had this kind of championship run since Tom Osborne's Nebraska teams won it all in 1994, 1995 and 1997.
Saban remembers that second team well. The Cornuskers stomped Michigan State 50-10 in Saban's first game as head coach.
"I'm thinking, we're never going to win a game," Saban said. "We'll never win a game here at Michigan State. I must have taken a bad job, wrong job, no players, something. I remember Coach Osborne when we shook hands after the game, he put his arm around me and whispered in my ear, 'You're not really as bad as you think.'"
So take heart, college football.

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AP Source: Browns interviewing CFL's Trestman

 A person familiar with the interview says the Browns are meeting with Montreal Alouettes coach Marc Trestman.
Trestman interviewed with the Chicago Bears on Monday night and arrived at the Browns' facility in suburban Berea on Tuesday, said the person who spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the search. Trestman is the fifth known candidate to interview with the Browns, who fired Pat Shurmur last week after two seasons.
Trestman was Cleveland's offensive coordinator in 1989. He has extensive background as an NFL assistant and has spent five seasons with Montreal, leading the Alouettes to two Grey Cup titles. The 56-year-old is under contract through 2016, but the club will allow him to leave for an NFL job if he's offered.
The Browns are not commenting on any of their interviews or candidates.
If the team was even thinking about contacting Nick Saban about their vacancy, Alabama's coach made it clear the NFL is in his past — not his future.
With their search in its second week, the Browns may have considered calling Saban, who coached the Miami Dolphins for two years before taking over the Crimson Tide's program. Fresh off winning his third national title in four years, the 61-year-old Saban reiterated that he's content at Alabama and outlined several reasons why he prefers to coach in college.
He said coaching in the NFL taught him that college "is where I belong, and I'm really happy and at peace with all that."
Saban worked as an assistant in Cleveland under Bill Belichick, and there has long been speculation he might one day return to the Browns.
Browns owner Jimmy Haslam and CEO Joe Banner have interviewed several coaching candidates and are expected to meet with more this week.
The Browns are expected to interview Indianapolis offensive coordinator Bruce Arians, who was released from a Baltimore hospital on Monday after he became ill before the Colts' 24-9 playoff loss to the Ravens.

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Kapalua now in a different golf landscape

KAPALUA, Hawaii (AP) — Paradise can leave a lasting impression.
Steve Stricker was just starting to pull himself out of a deep slump in 2006 when he was reminded by his daughter, Bobbi Maria, how long it had been since he last won on the PGA Tour. She was 8 at the time and won a tournament for juniors at their home club in Wisconsin, no more than three or six holes.
"She comes home all excited and says, 'Daddy, I won, I won! We're going to Hawaii,'" Stricker once recalled.
He had to break the news to her.
Stricker was the one who had to win a tournament for them to go to Kapalua to start a new season, and he did that the following year.
As traditions go in golf, starting the year on the rugged coast of Maui is relatively new. The Tournament of Champions began in Las Vegas in 1953, moved to La Costa Resort north of San Diego in 1969 and stayed there 30 years until coming to Kapalua.
This was the 15th year the tour has started at Kapalua, and there has never been another year like this one. A tournament that was supposed to end on Monday didn't start until Monday because of three days of powerful wind — one gust measuring 48 mph — that had the locals drawing comparisons with a 100-year storm.
About the only good that came out of such freak weather was that it took attention away, however briefly, from the PGA Tour winners who stayed home and missed out on the endless days — the top four players in the world ranking, for starters, led by Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods.
It's not a new problem, but it's still a problem. And it contributes to a future as cloudy as Molokai at sunrise.
Kapalua has a contract only through this year to host the tournament.
Hyundai's three-year deal as the title sponsor of the Tournament of Champions expires this year, even though corporate officials sounded optimistic about renewing and there are strong signs it will happen.
It doesn't help that Mother Nature was in a bad mood this week. Few things in golf cause a knee-jerk reaction like bad weather.
There were suggestions to move the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am to the end of the West Coast Swing after the tournament was canceled by rain in 1996, completed nearly seven months after it started in 1998 because of rain, and shortened to 54 holes a year later because of — you guessed it — rain.
Since then, Pebble has had more than its share of glorious weather.
The rain was so bad in California in 2005 that the Nissan Open at Riviera went five days to get in 36 holes. The next week, the Match Play Championship at La Costa was postponed one day because the entire course looked like a water hazard. Woods wondered if it might not be better for the PGA Tour to spend February in Florida and March in California. It sounded like a reasonable idea until a Champions Tour in Florida was shortened to 36 holes because of rain.
Wiser heads will realize that golf is an outdoor sport. It's not a disgrace when weather causes problems. It's a miracle it doesn't happen more often.
The issues on Maui go beyond weather.
The PGA Tour is going to a wraparound season in the fall, meaning the real season-opener will be in October at the Frys.com Open. There already will be six tournaments in the books before the Tournament of Champions next January.
Is that a problem? Not when you consider that for 33 years, the Tournament of Champions was held after the Masters.
"We are not terribly concerned about it," said Steve Shannon, vice president of marketing for Hyundai. "I think there is that aspect of it's the start of the year, so even if it's literally not the first PGA Tour event, there's something about the start of the year, and there's something about this location."
Still to be determined is what he meant by location — Kapalua specific or Hawaii in general?
Kapalua tends to get the brunt of the bad weather. There can be what the locals call "pineapple showers" along this portion of the coast, while only 20 miles away there is abundant sunshine and less wind. Still, the Plantation Course is the only course in Hawaii that Golf Digest ranks among the greatest 100 courses in America (No. 97). It's unlike any course the PGA Tour plays all year with dramatic changes in elevation and stunning views of the Pacific, such as humpback whales breaching and surfers at Honolua Bay.
The bigger concern is getting more players to come, though that's been an issue for years now.
Woods hasn't been back since 2005, when he started taking uninterrupted breaks in the winter. Phil Mickelson stopped coming a decade ago, suggesting the wind and slope allowed bad habits to creep into his swing. Adding to the list of absentees is Europe producing some of the best players. The European Tour season stretches deep in November, and some players simply want a long break going into the new season.
The 30-man field this year was hardly a disaster, and the leaderboard going into the final round featured a top five of Dustin Johnson, Stricker, Masters champion Bubba Watson, FedEx Cup champion Brandt Snedeker and former PGA champion Keegan Bradley. A lot of tournaments would love to have a leaderboard like that.
Years ago, an idea was tossed around to expand the field by offering a two-year exemption to the Tournament of Champions and include all past champions of the event, with the idea of getting Els and Sergio Garcia to the event because they didn't win the year before. Sure, having them at Kapalua would have helped. But the biggest mistake golf can make is to change rules around any one player, even a player like Tiger Woods.
Besides, Els and Garcia both won on the PGA Tour last year and were eligible to start the year in Kapalua. Neither of them showed up.

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Samsung Says It's Making More Money Than Apple, Now

Riding the wave of gadget goodness from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Samsung released a pretty impressive set of fourth quarter earnings estimates, including a record high profit. The South Korean electronics manufacturer says that it will make $8.3 billion in profits on $52.7 billion in revenue. That's a shade better than Apple's own record high profit of $8.2 billion on just $32 billion. Now, we could all day about the devilish details in the earnings reports and differences between the two companies revenue streams, but one things is brutally clear: Samsung is making more money than Apple, now. At least if its estimates are correct, they are.
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Tim Cook and company can't be thrilled about this news. Apple's very publicly struggled with Samsung's roaring success in the smartphone business, so much so that it has peppered its competitor with patent litigation lawsuits around the world in an attempt to get its products pulled from shelves. Though Apple won a big decision in the United States last fall, Samsung's been doing pretty well in the appeals process, and it's increasingly looking like Apple will not have its ban.
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Meanwhile, Samsung is still knocking the socks off of consumers. Just hours before releasing the glowing Q4 earnings estimates, the company pulled back the curtain on some pretty mind-boggling new TVs that will probably cost as much as a car but also shows that they're on the right side of the innovation curve. That would be the lucrative side.

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