World Markets Simplified

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Housing Affordability Ratings by Nation

Source: The 2012 Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey

(See also the US National City affordability table after the jump)

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Note that in the US, Florida is often used as an example if where prices have fallen so greatly as to produce enormous bargains. The data suggests otherwise. Miami for example has still yet to revert to pre credit bubble levels:

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Rumors of Affordability in Florida have Been greatly Exaggerated

Source: The 2012 Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey



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Source:
The biggest bubble in recent history is heading for the mother of all hard landings
Albert Edwards
Société Générale, May 3 2012

National US City affordability

Source: The 2012 Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey

Telefonica SA (TEF), Spain’s dominant telecommunications company, is offering a free mobile communications application for users of Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPhone as it tries to stop customers switching to cheaper rivals.

The TU Me app allows free calls and stores data for users online. It will be offered worldwide to users of Apple’s iOS software from today at no cost regardless of the phone operator, Telefonica Digital Chief Commercial Officer Stephen Shurrock said in an interview. The TU Me app will offer communication services including text messages, calls, sharing photos and voice-mail, he said.

Telefonica SA

Phone companies such as Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE), Vodafone Group Plc and Madrid-based Telefonica are struggling to adapt as customers increasingly use calling software such as Skype or the WhatsApp messaging technology on smartphones. Telefonica is also losing market share and suffering from declining profitability as clients switch to cheaper rivals including Jazztel Plc. (JAZ)

“We certainly see ways to monetize this app with a business model along the lines of Skype,” Shurrock said, declining to say how much revenue it could generate or how many customers may attract this year.

Microsoft Corp.’s Skype is the world’s most popular Internet-calling service, enabling free voice calls over the Web.

Human Genome Sciences Inc

If a report is to be believed, Cupertino giant Apple is mulling over launching a $799 MacBook Air model in the third quarter of this year.

According to a report from Digitimes, Apple is "considering responding to the upcoming second-generation ultrabooks by launching a $799 MacBook Air."

Currently, Apple's MacBook Air series starts at $999 for the 11-inch 64GB model and goes up to $1599.

But such a move from Apple seems to be unlikely as ultrabooks have not posed any threat to Apple's MacBook Air.

Besides generally making you healthy, a new study found that eating yogurt has some surprising benefits (at least in mice) including making their testicles, er, quite impressive.

In the mid-2000s, when scientists questioned whether the campaign to rid the world of polio could succeed, skeptics pointed to a problem that some called PAIN. Last summer a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology set out to better understand the effects of yogurt on obesity. They were following up on the results of a long-term study from the Harvard School of Public Health that had suggested yogurt, more than any other food, helped to prevent age-related weight gain. The M.I.T. team, led by cancer biologist Susan Erdman and evolutionary geneticist Eric Alm, wanted to replicate the work in mice. The researchers took a group of 40 males and 40 females and either fed the animals a high-fat, low-fiber, low-nutrient diet meant to mimic junk food or fed them standard mouse meals. They then supplemented half of each diet group with vanilla-flavored yogurt.

Their goal was to understand how a probiotic diet affects rates of obesity and its related complications, including cancer. But "the most entertaining aspects of all this were things we didn’t anticipate," Erdman says.

First, the scientists noticed that the yogurt-eating mice were incredibly shiny. Using both traditional histology techniques and cosmetic rating scales, the researchers showed that these animals had 10 times the active follicle density of other mice, resulting in luxuriantly silky fur.The mice projected their testes outward, which endowed them with a certain "mouse swagger."

Then the researchers spotted something particular about the males: they projected their testes outward, which endowed them with a certain "mouse swagger," Erdman says. On measuring the males, they found that the testicles of the yogurt consumers were about 5% heavier than those of mice fed typical diets alone and around 15 percent heavier than those of junk-eating males.

Yogurt might be good for you as is, but imagine if you dropped a little Prozac in it.

More important, that masculinity pays off. In mating experiments, yogurt-eating males inseminated their partners faster and produced more offspring than control mice. Conversely, females that ate the yogurt diets gave birth to larger litters and weaned those pups with greater success. Reflecting on their unpublished results, Erdman and Alm think that the probiotic microbes in the yogurt help to make the animals leaner and healthier, which indirectly improves sexual machismo.

The findings could have implications for human fertility. In ongoing work, a team led by Harvard nutritional epidemiologist Jorge Chavarro has looked at the association between yogurt intake and semen quality in men. "So far our preliminary findings are consistent with what they see in the mice," Chavarro says.

This article was published in print as "Mice That Eat Yogurt Have Larger Testicles."

From ScientificAmerican.com Click here for the original article

Splashgain Technologies (ST), a software firm has introduced an Android application, called ePravesh to help institutions and students to facilitate the admission process better. Free for those who've registered themselves with www.epravesh.com, the application provides students with admission details, like relevant information on brochures, course details and access to the respective school or college website among others. The application is available across all Android-enabled smartphones. ( image by universitiesnews.com )

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Update 1: Nifty has moved lower again, those who have extended their short positions from yesterday can exit 75% or full positions ( Nifty at 4960 )

Tips & Outlook
Nifty continued a downward movement in the morning trade today. Our last two recommendation was to be on short side on Nifty. We suggested sell on rise strategy that will make traders a handsome return in two days.

Today we expect a quiet day on Markets, for those who have already shorted Nifty, they can either hold positions or square off. New short positions only created once Nifty move upwards. So that, risk reward ratio is favorable. We maintain our sell on rise strategy on Nifty and short when Nifty rallies towards 5200.

Caution: There is only worry in above strategy is US markets, as we have seen that Dow Jones and S&P 500 showing strength and after a steep fall ( feared by Greek Election outcome and bail out deal at risk ) in early morning yesterday .US markets didn't sell off and recovered at the end of the day. If US markets are holding up gains for a year, then other markets gain strength and momentum and downfall may be reversed.

See our yesterday's Tip Here

There is a lot of buzz on a wall street about a multi billion dollar IPO of Facebook Inc, a social network giant will start trading soon. All the analysts have started covering a price discovery and target for the company. All of them are bullish on the particular stock. According to our analyst team, we are looking to short Facebook shares in terms of Investment. There are few rationale behind it, according to our team.

Few years back, when there was no Facebook, Social networking sites were existing and having similar theme to engage their users to different online activities and get advertisement revenues. After the launch of Facebook, all of a sudden people started realizing that Social Network are existing and everyone should participate to get connected. Why others failed and Facebook Inc succeeded. Its not that Facebook has something that others can't provide in a Social Network site, but the restrictions and visualization that helped Facebook to gain wide public interest.

But can any one be sure that there might be nothing better than Facebook that can emerge in such a fast moving technology world. As few years ago, when nobody expected ( Even not companies like Google Inc ) that Social Network can be such a big hit, as the idea was already exist.

The another reason is we are living in such a fast moving technology world, that everyday there is a new discovery of gadgets and systems. People have to accustomed to it on a daily basis means they have to keep tracking and learning meanwhile being involved in day to day activity as well. It is not the students from computer science who are learning these technology, but end users also have to keep tracking those changes. In a long term, it might be hatred by the users as they were tired of such a fast change. If we see, few users were already spending less time on Facebook than they were when it was new to them, means the excitement was fading. Again, The same thing felt when Facebook introduced a timeline in user's page, people didn't like it much.

Another reason is technology is changing in such a way that there might be something bigger than Facebook will exist tomorrow. As tech giant like Google Inc even didn't expected Facebook will grow such a big, another small idea might came up down the few years and might grow bigger than currently Facebook is.

Facebook Inc has to keep innovating new concepts without loosing public interest and let the public give enough time to learn them. "It is like making users' life easier without get noticed by them". It might be little difficult for Facebook in a coming years with the use of only Social Network. Company has to engage in different intellectual property based research program to get monopoly businesses in coming years to keep growing.

So, it may be a possibility that Facebook might end up with less market valuation than it might have now. Because new technology have to make sure that it should be simplify the life, then only people can accept change, not like changing technology every other day so, that no one can keep track of what's coming and going and which one is the best.

Also, Facebook IPO demand is weaker than expected Read More

It is the point of view of our team and might be based on our knowledge.