Start of "Santa rally" dampened by "cliff" worries

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged lower on Monday as caution over the potential for volatility driven by worries about the U.S. "fiscal cliff" dampened enthusiasm at the start of a seasonally strong period for equities.

The S&P 500 index <.spx> declined 0.9 percent on Friday, its biggest drop in more than a month, as a Republican plan to avoid the cliff - $600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts that could tip the U.S. economy into recession - failed to gain any traction on Thursday night.

Sharp moves like that highlight how headlines from Washington can whipsaw markets, especially during the thinly traded period over the Christmas holidays.

Still, with the S&P 500 up 0.8 percent in December and on course for its strongest month since September, some analysts are predicting that stocks will find their footing during a market seasonality known as the "Santa rally."

"Right now we've seen some very constructive action in the market so I think that bodes well for this being a positive seasonal 'Santa' period over the coming seven days," said Ari Wald, a technical analyst at The PrinceRidge Group.

Wald points to an all-time high in the NYSE advance-decline line, which compares the advancing and declining stocks, as indication of strong participation in the rally off November lows that is setting stocks up for their best year since 2009. A large number of advancers to decliners shows there is broad participation across the equity market.

"Pull backs are buying opportunities," said Wald. "There has been really great participation on this move, a lot of small- and mid-cap stocks behaving well, pushing out to the upside; we're seeing some good leadership from offensive sectors of the market as well."

The Santa seasonality covers the last five trading days of the year and the first two of the new year. Since 1928, The S&P 500 has averaged a gain of 1.8 percent during this period and risen 79 percent of the time, according to data from PrinceRidge.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 35.78 points, or 0.27 percent, to 13,155.06. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> fell 3.69 points, or 0.26 percent, to 1,426.46. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> lost 10.68 points, or 0.35 percent, to 3,010.33.

The S&P 500 remains up more than 13 percent for the year, having recovered nearly all the losses suffered in the wake of the U.S. elections. The yearly gain would be the best since 2009.

Some U.S. lawmakers expressed concern on Sunday the country would go over the cliff, as some Republicans charged that was President Barack Obama's goal. Talks are stalled with Obama and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner out of Washington for the holidays.

"It does seem like we are continuing through the same drift of the same thing we've had the past couple of weeks - cliff talk," said Nick Scheumann, wealth partner at Hefty Wealth Partners in Auburn, Indiana.

"You can't trade on what you don't know and we truly don't know what they are going to do," he said.

Congress is expected to return to Washington next Thursday as Obama returns from a trip to Hawaii. As the deadline draws closer, a 'stop-gap' deal appears to be the most likely outcome of any talks.

Trading volumes are expected to be muted, with U.S. equity markets scheduled to close at 1 p.m. (1800 GMT) ahead of the Christmas holiday on Tuesday.

In addition, a number of European markets will operate on a shortened session, with other markets closed entirely.

U.S. retailers may not see a sales surge this weekend as ho-hum discounts and fears about imminent tax hikes and cuts in government spending give Americans fewer reasons to open their wallets in the last few days before Christmas.

Aegerion Pharmaceuticals Inc said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Juxtapid capsules in patients with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, but will conduct a post-approval study to test long-term safety and efficacy. Shares fell 4.7 percent to $24.50.

Herbalife Ltd dipped 5.8 percent to $25.68 in premarket after the company said it expects to exceed its previously announced repurchase authorization guidance and has retained Moelis & Company as its strategic advisor. The declines put the stock on track for a ninth straight decline.

Yum Brands Inc advanced 1.7 percent to $64.98 after Shanghai's food safety authority said the level of antibiotics and steroids in the company's KFC chicken was within official limits.

(Reporting By Edward Krudy; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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Colts recovering coach returns to team facility

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Chuck Pagano was back at work Monday morning.

Three months after taking an indefinite leave to battle leukemia, the Colts' coach was scheduled to meet with players, coaches and reporters as he retook the reins from interim coach Bruce Arians.

When Pagano arrived at the team headquarters, he drove past an inflatable Colts player to the side of the driveway with a simple message across the chest "Welcome Back Chuck." The sign usually reads "Beat," plus whichever team the Colts play next.

Indianapolis (10-5) has been waiting months for this day, and last week Arians called Pagano's impending return the best Christmas gift the team could get.

Pagano began the first of three rounds of chemotherapy Sept. 26, after the team completed its final practice during a bye week.

When the Colts returned to their practice facility Oct. 1, they were told Pagano had cancer and was taking an indefinite leave.

Arians, a prostate cancer survivor, immediately established the goal: Play long enough so Pagano could return to the sideline this season.

If all goes well at practice this week, Pagano will likely be on the sideline calling the shots Sunday against AFC South champion Houston in the regular-season finale. It would be the first time Pagano has been making game-day decisions since Jacksonville scored a last-minute touchdown on an 80-yard TD pass in Week 3, handing Indy it's only home loss this season.

Under Arians, the Colts did better than anyone expected.

When players arrived at training camp in August, they handed out T-shirts that showed where the so-called experts figured they would finish this season: The NFL's worst team again.

But with Sunday's 20-13 victory at Kansas City, Indy clinched its first playoff spot of the post-Peyton Manning era and Arians tied the league record for most wins after a midseason coaching change (nine). Indy is the fourth team in league history to win two or fewer games one season and 10 or more the next and became the second team in league history to lose 14 or more games one season and win 10 or more the next — joining the 2008 Miami Dolphins.

Pagano was never far from the Colts' thoughts while he was out.

He was in contact with players and coaches primarily through phone calls and text messages, watched tapes of practices and games on his computer, attended three home games and sometimes showed up at the team complex. He occasionally gave pregame or postgame speeches throughout his recovery.

On Nov. 5, Pagano's oncologist, Dr. Larry Cripe, said the illness was in complete remission, though Pagano still had to complete two more rounds of chemotherapy. The last round ended the first week of December. Last Thursday, Cripe said he gave Pagano medical clearance to return to the team. Cripe said he was putting no restrictions on what Pagano could do, only that he advised Pagano, as he does with other patients, to scale things back if necessary.

___

Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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Shootings: Suicide risk gives clues

A sign near a cemetery of a victim in the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Daniel Flannery: Studies show there is no distinct profile of school shooters


• Flannery: We can take lessons from what we know about risk for suicide


• He says we can do better to assess a person's risk for violent action toward others


• Flannery: Communities and schools should pay more attention to kids' mental health

Editor's note: Daniel J. Flannery is the Dr. Semi J. and Ruth Begun professor and director of the Begun Center for Violence Prevention, Research and Education at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University.

(CNN) -- It is hard not to feel a sense of despair, loss and anxiety over the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. We want answers. We may not know for a very long time, if ever, what really motivated the shooter.

Previous studies of school shooters show us that some common mental health symptoms characterize many of the perpetrators, including poor anger management ability, narcissism, low self-esteem and lack of empathy. However, there are still many more differences across shooters than similarities, so to date there is no distinct profile of school shooters.

What can we do, aside from the psychological autopsying of recent incidents, to try and prevent more homicide school shootings? There is no simple answer. But we can take some lessons from what we know about risk for suicide.

Daniel J. Flannery

For many years, we have done a pretty good job of getting people to take threats of suicide seriously. If a young person walks into a counselor's office and says something like, "I think I'm going to kill myself," that counselor has been professionally trained and socialized to not underestimate the threat of self-injury.

Certainly, not every young adult who says such a thing goes on to commit suicide. Evidence shows that many of them have at least thought about hurting or killing themselves at some point, but few actually make a real attempt and fewer still carry it out.

Developing a good model for assessing the risk of suicide can provide a framework for how to assess the seriousness of threats to commit acts of violence toward others.

For example, one of the best predictors of suicide is previous suicide attempts. We try to determine whether a person has access to lethal methods of self-harm (drugs, firearms) and how detailed are the plans to carry out the act. We look for signs of anger and whether the person has experienced a recent crisis or loss. We try to figure out if a person's sense of rejection or disenfranchisement leads to a sense of hopelessness about the future, and a conviction that suicide is the only way out of a desperate situation. Moreover, if a person knows someone close who has committed suicide, we have to be vigilant since there tends to be an increase (clustering) of suicides among friends or acquaintances.

Each of these signposts can help us do a better job of assessing a person's risk for carrying out acts of violence toward others like in the school shootings.

We can look for any history of violence -- whether the person has written about or told others of his or her intent. We can try to find out whether the person has access to firearms or has thought out a plan to carry out an attack. We can try to evaluate levels of anger, feelings of rejection, or expressions of hopelessness about the future.

Most adolescent school shooters have said something to peers prior to taking any action, but not always to the direct target of an attack, and rarely to an adult. (In contrast, in rampage shootings carried out by adults, we don't have as much information and they don't usually give verbal warnings or threats beforehand.)

Ideally, assessing the risk would be carried out using a validated set of reliable indicators, with detailed semi-structured interviews performed by trained mental health professionals. In schools, social workers, counselors or school psychologists can screen young people for risk of potential violence perpetration and refer them to other mental health professionals who could do a more thorough assessment if necessary. Of course, adequate screenings depend largely on adequate time, resources and staff training.

Not every young person who makes a threat to hurt others will end up committing an act of violence toward others, and very few will ever commit a multiple mass shooting. But just as we take threats of suicide seriously, we should pay equal attention to those who say they might harm others.

We have to do all we can to make sure our children are safe, and that they all come home at the end of the school day. We can take steps as a community to pay attention to mental health and violence as it occurs every day, not just when horrible acts of great magnitude occur.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Daniel J. Flannery.

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Quentin Tarantino unchains America’s tormented past in “Django”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Twenty years after Quentin Tarantino unveiled his first film “Reservoir Dogs,” the director has turned his eye to America’s slavery history, spinning a blood-filled retribution tale in his trademark style for “Django Unchained.”

Tarantino, 49, has become synonymous with violence and dark humor, taking on the Nazis in “Inglourious Basterds” and mobsters in “Pulp Fiction.”

In “Django Unchained,” to be released in U.S. theaters on Christmas Day, he fuses a spaghetti Western cowboy action adventure with a racially charged revenge tale set in the 19th century, before the abolition of slavery in the United States.

Jamie Foxx stars as a slave whose freedom is bought by a former dentist, played by Christoph Waltz. The two set off as bounty hunters, rounding up robbers and cattle rustlers before turning their attention to brutal plantation owners in America’s Deep South.

Tarantino is well-versed in delivering violence. But the director said he faced “a lot of trepidation” about filming the slavery scenes. He has already come under fire from some critics for the frequent use in the film of the “N-word” – a racial slur directed at blacks.

The director said he was initially hesitant to ask black actors to play slaves who are shackled and whipped, and even considered filming outside of the United States.

But a dinner with veteran Oscar-winning actor Sidney Poitier, whom Tarantino called a “father figure,” changed his mind after Poitier urged him to not “be afraid” of his film.

“This movie is a deep, deep, deep American story, and it needed to be made by an American, and it needed to star Americans. … Lots of the movies dealing with this issue have usually had Brits playing Southerners and it creates this arm’s-distance quality,” Tarantino said.

Much of the film’s more graphic slavery scenes, such as gladiator-style fights to the death and being encased naked in a metal hot box in the heat of the Southern sun, are drawn from real accounts.

“We were shooting on hallowed ground. This was the ground of our ancestors. … Their blood was in the grass, there’s still bits of flesh embedded in the bark,” Tarantino said.

The film has received good reviews from critics and is expected to add Oscar nominations in January to its five Golden Globe nods.

With the exception of Waltz, who plays eccentric German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz, the majority of the main players are not only American but from the South.

“It seemed sacred to us, and we couldn’t help but channel those emotions, everybody on the crew and on the set. … Those were very moving days,” Tarantino said.

‘DESPICABLE’ CHARACTERS

Tarantino reunited with Waltz, who won an Oscar in 2010 for his role as a menacing Nazi officer in “Inglourious Basterds,” and long-time collaborator Samuel L. Jackson, who plays slave housekeeper Stephen, a character who Tarantino described as “the most despicable black (character)” in movie history.

“Stephen might be frankly the most fascinating character in the whole piece, and it was important to deal with that whole upstairs-downstairs aspect of the Antebellum South,” he said.

The role that has people talking is Leonardo DiCaprio‘s first villainous turn as a racist plantation owner – a stark contrast from his Hollywood heartthrob “Titanic” days and roles as eccentric Americans in “The Aviator” and “J. Edgar.”

Asked how he felt to be the first director to make DiCaprio a villain, Tarantino laughed, saying he felt “pretty darn good about it.” He commended DiCaprio for turning into a “Southern-fried Caligula,” referring to the tyrannical ancient Roman emperor.

“I saw him as a petulant boy emperor. … He has nothing but hedonistic hobbies and vices to indulge him, and it’s almost as if he’s rotting from the inside,” Tarantino said.

The film’s female lead, Django’s wife Broomhilda played by Kerry Washington, moves away from Tarantino’s fierce screen women such as Uma Thurman in “Kill Bill” and Diane Kruger in “Inglourious Basterds.”

Tarantino said Broomhilda was meant to be the “princess in exile.” He said he was “annoyed” when he was asked by a friend why Broomhilda did not exact revenge on her abusers in the same way as Thurman’s “Kill Bill” character. The film, he said, is “Django’s story.”

“It invokes … that odyssey that Django goes on and gives the black slave narrative the romantic dimensions of great opera or great folklore tales,” Tarantino said.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant, Patricia Reaney and Will Dunham)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Alcohol fraud rising, say traders

22 December 2012 Last updated at 20:25 ET

By Emma Forde 5 live Investigates

UK tax authorities are not doing enough to tackle alcohol duty fraud, claims a leading off-licence chain.

Bargain Booze told the BBC that the number of stores telling HM Revenue and Customs that they face illegal competition is rising.

Last year HMRC received over 600 reports to its tax hotline relating to alcohol fraud.

The Revenue said it acted on every piece of intelligence, but admitted investigations could take years.

The government has given HMRC £17m to tackle the gangs behind the fraud.

‘Paper event’

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

There are outlets all over the country which are selling at prices we couldn’t get even get close to matching and nobody is stopping them”

End Quote David Visick The Federation of Wholesale Distributors

Alcohol duty fraud in the UK often involves exporting alcohol to the EU – untaxed – and then bringing it back into the UK with false paperwork.

This method exploits EU rules which state duty does not have to be paid on alcohol when it is being transferred between registered producers or wholesalers – it is only paid when it enters the marketplace.

But the BBC’s 5 live Investigates programme has learned that some lorries containing duty-unpaid alcohol meant for export never even leave the UK.

“Increasingly it’s just a paper event – the lorry never goes abroad, so the actual product never leaves the UK. The lorry just stops on a lay-by somewhere and gets turned around,” says Keith Webb, acting managing director of Bargain Booze.

The illicit alcohol ends up in the hands of rogue wholesalers and retailers who then sell it on at prices which legitimate traders say are only possible if duty has been evaded.

A study published by the All Party Parliamentary Beer Group earlier this year, said HMRC estimates up to 1 in 5 cans and bottles of beer sold in the UK is illicit, and beer smuggling could be costing the Treasury around £500m per year in lost duty alone.

Representatives from the alcohol retail industry claim the total cost to the Exchequer could be billions of pounds: “HMRC view the loss of revenue to the Exchequer at £1.2bn, but that excludes wine. Within the trade, the real cost to the Exchequer is viewed as something in excess of £4bn a year,” says Keith Webb.

Illegal off-licences

5 live Investigates visited one suspected illegal wholesaler in the North West of England – a warehouse on an industrial estate. The programme team saw a wide range of alcohol being sold at very low prices, compared to what is offered on the high street.

For example, six bottles of Echo Falls Chardonnay was priced at £16.99 and 24 cans of Foster’s lager was £13.49.

Continue reading the main story

Alcohol duty fraud in the UK

• EU law requires that alcohol can be moved “duty unpaid” between registered warehouses


• Duty becomes payable at the point it enters the market – when it is sold to a non-bonded customer


• HMRC estimates duty fraud accounts for lost legitimate sales in the UK of over £1bn, with beer estimated at around half that total


• HMRC estimates that beer smuggling may be currently costing the Treasury around £500m in lost duty per year


• They believe that at least 1 in 10, and possibly 1 in 5, of all cans and bottles of beer on sale in the UK is duty unpaid


• Once fraudsters have smuggled beer back to the UK it can enter the legitimate supply chain, reappearing undetected alongside duty-paid beer in supermarkets and off-licences


• HMRC believes wine duty fraud is also significant in the UK and the Federation of Wholesale Distributors says its members have seen a decline in sales of an estimated £750m

Source: All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group, Beer Tax Fraud Inquiry, July 2012

A leading legitimate cash-and-carry operator said it could not find beers and wines so cheap even at wholesale prices, let alone match the on-the-shelf price offered to members of the public.

The cash-and-carry owner, who did not want to be named due to fear of reprisal from criminal gangs, says it would have to pay around £19.35 for a box of six bottles of Echo Falls Chardonnay – of that, £11.40 would be duty.

The same amount and brand of lager would cost £16.56, with duty at £9.36 per case.

Another legitimate wholesaler based in the West Midlands told the BBC its beer sales have fallen by around £20m in the last seven years as a direct result of illegal wholesalers operating in the same area.

Another legal retailer in the North West of England said it may stop selling alcohol altogether in the next 10 years because it cannot compete with the illegal trade.

“There are outlets all over the country which are selling at prices we couldn’t even get close to matching and nobody’s stopping them,” says David Visick from The Federation of Wholesale Distributors.

“That’s the responsibility of HMRC, but HMRC is more interested in chasing the problem to the root, to find the big criminals gangs who are behind this.”

Tackling criminal gangs

The BBC has been told one wholesaler suspected of alcohol fraud has been reported to HMRC over 30 times in the last 18 months – yet is still operating.

Continue reading the main story

5 live Investigates

Listen to the full report on 5 live Investigates on Sunday, 23 December at 21:00 GMT.

Sixteen people were convicted of alcohol fraud between 2009/2010, according to HMRC figures, and 40 civil penalties have been issued this year.

“We could chalk up a cricket score of prosecutions of small players and pawns in the organisations and that would make our outputs look good,” says Andy Leggett, HMRC’s deputy director of alcohol, tobacco & gambling taxes.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Every single piece of intelligence is acted upon, but that does not necessarily mean we will go and knock on that specific door in the next week”

End Quote Andy Leggett HMRC

“But the reality is, that would have zero impact on the fraud because those people would be replaced within days.”

The government has allocated £917m to HMRC to tackle tax avoidance, evasion and criminal attack over the next four years – £17m of that is to specifically target the organised criminal gangs behind alcohol fraud.

“Every single piece of intelligence is acted upon, but that does not necessarily mean we will go and knock on that specific door in the next week,” says Andy Leggett. “That may lead to an investigation many years down the track or may lead to an investigation elsewhere.”

Mr Leggett says HMRC is determined to tackle the criminal gangs, but disrupting their trade takes time. Enforcement officers will use criminal prosecutions and civil penalties to dismantle the illicit trade, but he acknowledges the frustration felt by other traders operating lawfully.

Earlier this year, HMRC smashed a £50m-a-year alcohol tax evasion scam – the biggest uncovered. The gang imported beers and wines from France duty-free for onward export, but the stock never left the UK and was diverted for sale without taxes and duties being paid. The ringleader, Kevin Burrage, was jailed for 10 years.

You can listen to the full report on 5 live Investigates on Sunday, 23 December, at 21:00 GMT on BBC 5 live. Listen again via the 5 live website or by downloading the 5 live Investigates podcast.

BBC News – Business

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France checks ministers’ taxes after Swiss bank report

PARIS (Reuters) – French tax authorities said they were carrying out a “routine” examination of government members’ personal finances and denied a report that Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac was being singled out for a specific probe.

The statement was issued through Cahuzac’s ministry amid weekend media reports that President Francois Hollande could be considering a government reshuffle, seven months after his May election victory against Nicolas Sarkozy.

Cahuzac, who is leading an official crackdown on tax evasion, has vigorously denied reports by Mediapart that he held a Swiss bank account with UBS (UBSN.VX) until 2010 and is suing the investigative news website for libel.

Such allegations are particularly sensitive at a time when the government has sharply increased income tax for the highest earners and heaped criticism on wealthy individuals who have sought to shift their tax base abroad.

The budget minister is at risk of losing his portfolio in an imminent shake-up, newspapers Le Parisien and Le Journal du Dimanche both reported on Sunday, citing unidentified government sources.

But Cahuzac’s ministry denied a new Mediapart report on Friday that its tax inspectors were investigating his own French assets. The minister had ordered checks on all government members as standard procedure, it said.

“As is routine with each new government, the budget minister has asked the public finances directorate to examine the tax situation of the government’s members,” the ministry said in a statement issued late on Saturday.

“It is this procedure that is under way, with the aim of ensuring that the position of every government member is irreproachable,” it said. “No inspection or investigation is in progress with regard to any government member.”

(Reporting by Laurence Frost and Gerard Bon; Editing by Stephen Powell)

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Wall Street Week Ahead: A lump of coal for "Fiscal Cliff-mas"

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street traders are going to have to pack their tablets and work computers in their holiday luggage after all.

A traditionally quiet week could become hellish for traders as politicians in Washington are likely to fall short of an agreement to deal with $600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts due to kick in early next year. Many economists forecast that this "fiscal cliff" will push the economy into recession.

Thursday's debacle in the U.S. House of Representatives, where Speaker John Boehner failed to secure passage of his own bill that was meant to pressure President Obama and Senate Democrats, only added to worry that the protracted budget talks will stretch into 2013.

Still, the market remains resilient. Friday's decline on Wall Street, triggered by Boehner's fiasco, was not enough to prevent the S&P 500 from posting its best week in four.

"The markets have been sort of taking this in stride," said Sandy Lincoln, chief market strategist at BMO Asset Management U.S. in Chicago, which has about $38 billion in assets under management.

"The markets still basically believe that something will be done," he said.

If something happens next week, it will come in a short time frame. Markets will be open for a half-day on Christmas Eve, when Congress will not be in session, and will close on Tuesday for Christmas. Wall Street will resume regular stock trading on Wednesday, but volume is expected to be light throughout the rest of the week with scores of market participants away on a holiday break.

For the week, the three major U.S. stock indexes posted gains, with the Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> up 0.4 percent, the S&P 500 <.spx> up 1.2 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> up 1.7 percent.

Stocks also have booked solid gains for the year so far, with just five trading sessions left in 2012: The Dow has advanced 8 percent, while the S&P 500 has climbed 13.7 percent and the Nasdaq has jumped 16 percent.

IT COULD GET A LITTLE CRAZY

Equity volumes are expected to fall sharply next week. Last year, daily volume on each of the last five trading days dropped on average by about 49 percent, compared with the rest of 2011 - to just over 4 billion shares a day exchanging hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT in the final five sessions of the year from a 2011 daily average of 7.9 billion.

If the trend repeats, low volumes could generate a spike in volatility as traders keep track of any advance in the cliff talks in Washington.

"I'm guessing it's going to be a low volume week. There's not a whole lot other than the fiscal cliff that is going to continue to take the headlines," said Joe Bell, senior equity analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research, in Cincinnati.

"A lot of people already have a foot out the door, and with the possibility of some market-moving news, you get the possibility of increased volatility."

Economic data would have to be way off the mark to move markets next week. But if the recent trend of better-than-expected economic data holds, stocks will have strong fundamental support that could prevent selling from getting overextended even as the fiscal cliff negotiations grind along.

Small and mid-cap stocks have outperformed their larger peers in the last couple of months, indicating a shift in investor sentiment toward the U.S. economy. The S&P MidCap 400 Index <.mid> overcame a technical level by confirming its close above 1,000 for a second week.

"We view the outperformance of the mid-caps and the break of that level as a strong sign for the overall market," Schaeffer's Bell said.

"Whenever you have flight to risk, it shows investors are beginning to have more of a risk appetite."

Evidence of that shift could be a spike in shares in the defense sector, expected to take a hit as defense spending is a key component of the budget talks.

The PHLX defense sector index <.dfx> hit a historic high on Thursday, and far outperformed the market on Friday with a dip of just 0.26 percent, while the three major U.S. stock indexes finished the day down about 1 percent.

Following a half-day on Wall Street on Monday ahead of the Christmas holiday, Wednesday will bring the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index. It is expected to show a ninth-straight month of gains.

U.S. jobless claims on Thursday are seen roughly in line with the previous week's level, with the forecast at 360,000 new filings for unemployment insurance, compared with the previous week's 361,000.

(Wall St Week Ahead runs every Friday. Questions or comments on this column can be emailed to: rodrigo.campos(at)thomsonreuters.com)

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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UK paper suing Lance Armstrong over libel case

LONDON (AP) — Lance Armstrong is being sued for more than $1.5 million by a British newspaper over the settlement of a libel action, which followed doping allegations against the cyclist that it published.

The Sunday Times paid Armstrong 300,000 pounds (now about $485,000) in 2006 to settle a case after it reprinted claims from a book in 2004 that he took performance-enhancing drugs.

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency concluded this year that Armstrong led a massive doping program on his teams. Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned from cycling for life.

The Sunday Times announced in an article in its latest edition that it has issued legal papers against Armstrong.

"It is clear that the proceedings were baseless and fraudulent," the paper said in a letter to Armstrong's lawyers. "Your representations that you had never taken performance enhancing drugs were deliberately false."

The paper, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., said its total claim against Armstrong is "likely to exceed" 1 million pounds ($1.6 million).

"The Sunday Times is now demanding a return of the settlement payment plus interest, as well as its costs in defending the case," the paper said.

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Senators slam movie's torture scenes

In the new film "Zero Dark Thirty," Jessica Chastain plays a CIA analyst who is part of the team hunting Osama bin Laden.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Sens. Feinstein, McCain, Levin send letter calling new film "grossly inaccurate"


• Letter adds to controversy over depiction of torture as a key to finding bin Laden, Bergen says


• Senate committee has approved 6,000-page classified report on CIA interrogations program


• Bergen says as much as possible of that report should be released to the public

Editor's note: Peter Bergen is a CNN national security analyst and author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden, from 9/11 to Abbottabad."

(CNN) -- On Wednesday, three senior U.S. senators sent Michael Lynton, the CEO of Sony Pictures, a letter about "Zero Dark Thirty," the much-discussed new movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, which described the film as "grossly inaccurate and misleading."

In the letter, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-California, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Michigan, and Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, expressed their "deep disappointment" in the movie's depiction of CIA officers torturing prisoners, which "credits these detainees with providing critical lead information" about the courier who led the CIA to bin Laden's hiding place in northern Pakistan.

The senators point out that the filmmakers of "Zero Dark Thirty" open the movie with the words that it is "based on first-hand accounts of actual events." The film then goes on, the senators say, to give the clear implication "that the CIA's coercive interrogation techniques were effective in eliciting important information related to a courier for Usama Bin Laden."

Review: 'Zero Dark Thirty' is utterly gripping

Peter Bergen

The senators write that this is not supported by the facts: "We have reviewed CIA records and know that this is incorrect."

Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to sign off on the findings of its three-year study of the CIA's detention and interrogation program, during the course of which the committee's staff reviewed more than 6 million pages of records about the program.

Based on the findings of that review, Sens. Feinstein and Levin had released a statement eight months ago that said, "The CIA did not first learn about the existence of the Usama Bin Laden courier from CIA detainees subjected to coercive interrogation techniques. Nor did the CIA discover the courier's identity from detainees subjected to coercive techniques. ... Instead, the CIA learned of the existence of the courier, his true name and location through means unrelated to the CIA detention and interrogation program."

In their letter to Sony, the three senators write, "(W)ith the release of Zero Dark Thirty, the filmmakers and your production studio are perpetuating the myth that torture is effective. ... We believe that you have an obligation to state that the role of torture in the hunt for Usama Bin Laden is not based on the facts."

Requests from Sony Pictures for comment on the senators' letter yielded a response referring to a statement that the film's director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal had released last week:

"This was a 10-year intelligence operation brought to the screen in a two-and-a-half-hour film. We depicted a variety of controversial practices and intelligence methods that were used in the name of finding bin Laden. The film shows that no single method was necessarily responsible for solving the manhunt, nor can any single scene taken in isolation fairly capture the totality of efforts the film dramatizes. One thing is clear: the single greatest factor in finding the world's most dangerous man was the hard work and dedication of the intelligence professionals who spent years working on this global effort. We encourage people to see the film before characterizing it."

'Zero Dark Thirty' puts U.S. interrogation back in the spotlight

"Zero Dark Thirty" does indeed show many scenes of the various forms of sleuthing at the CIA that were necessary to track down al Qaeda's leader.

But the statement from the filmmakers does not address the fact that eight months ago, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee had publicly said that based on an exhaustive investigation, there was no evidence that coercive interrogations helped lead to bin Laden's courier -- which is clearly what the film suggests, no matter what retrospective gloss the filmmakers now wish to apply to the issue.

Nor does the statement indicate if Sony plans to put a disclaimer at the beginning of "Zero Dark Thirty" explaining that the role of coercive interrogations in tracking down bin Laden that is shown in the film is not supported by the facts.

As I outlined in a piece on CNN.com 10 days ago assessing the role that coercive interrogations might have played in the hunt for bin Laden, about half an hour of the start of "Zero Dark Thirty" consists of scenes of a bloodied al Qaeda detainee strung to the ceiling with ropes who is beaten; forced to wear a dog collar while crawling around attached to a leash; stripped naked in the presence of a female CIA officer; blasted with heavy metal music so he is deprived of sleep; forced to endure multiple crude waterboardings; and locked into a coffin-like wooden crate.

These are the scenes that will linger with filmgoers, far more than the scene in the movie where two CIA analysts discuss what will prove to be a key lead to bin Laden that surfaces in an old file. Brutal interrogations, of course, make for a better movie than a discussion at the office.

It is only after systematic abuse by his CIA interrogators in "Zero Dark Thirty" that the al Qaeda detainee is tricked into believing that he has already given up key information, and he starts cooperating and tells them about a man known as Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, who ultimately proves to be bin Laden's courier.

Acting CIA director Michael Morell, in a letter to CIA employees on Friday, took strong exception to this portrayal of how bin Laden was found:

"The film creates the strong impression that the enhanced interrogation techniques that were part of our former detention and interrogation program were the key to finding Bin Ladin. That impression is false. As we have said before, the truth is that multiple streams of intelligence led CIA analysts to conclude that Bin Ladin was hiding in Abbottabad. Some came from detainees subjected to enhanced techniques, but there were many other sources as well. "

"Zero Dark Thirty" opened Wednesday in New York and Los Angeles and will open nationwide in the second week in January.

Let's hope that the attention that "Zero Dark Thirty" has directed to the issue of what kind of intelligence was derived from the CIA's coercive interrogations will help to put pressure on the White House and the CIA to release to the public as much as possible of the presently classified 6,000-page report by the Senate Intelligence Committee that examines this issue.

_____________

Full disclosure: Along with other national security experts, as an unpaid adviser I screened an early cut of "Zero Dark Thirty." We advised that al Qaeda detainees held at secret CIA prison sites overseas were certainly abused, but they were not beaten to a pulp, as was presented in this early cut. Screenwriter Mark Boal told CNN as a result of this critique, some of the bloodier scenes were "toned down" in the final cut. I also saw this final cut of the film. Finally, HBO is making a theatrical release documentary which will be out in 2013 based on my book about the hunt for bin Laden entitled "Manhunt."

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“Hobbit” fever beats Tom Cruise at box office

(Reuters) – The big-budget “Hobbit” fantasy movie ruled movie box office charts for a second straight weekend, fending off Hollywood heavyweight Tom Cruise in new crime drama “Jack Reacher.”

“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” hauled in nearly $ 37 million from theaters in the United States and Canada, according to studio estimates of Friday-through-Sunday ticket sales. The film is the first of three movies based on the classic J.R.R. Tolkien novel about a world of dwarfs, elves and dragons in the fictitious Middle Earth.

In second place, Cruise’s “Jack Reacher” about the investigation into a sniper shooting brought in just short of $ 17 million at U.S. and Canadian theaters. Distributor Paramount Pictures postponed a premiere of the film after the fatal school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, sparked new scrutiny of violent movies.

Adult comedy “This is 40,” starring Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann as a middle-aged couple, brought in $ 12 million, finishing in third place.

“The Hobbit” was distributed by Time Warner Inc’s Warner Bros. studio. Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc, released “Jack Reacher.” Comcast Corp’s Universal Pictures distributed “This is 40.”

(Reporting By Lisa Richwine and Andrea Burzynski)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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