The sunny southern California city won the top spot in the Men’s Health magazine list of America’s 100 luckiest towns, with Baltimore, Phoenix, Wilmington in Delaware and Richmond, Virginia not far behind.”Luck is basically our modern world’s magic,” said David Zinczenko, editor in chief of the magazine. “People need to believe in luck because it allows them to give a name to the randomness of life, and when you name something, you have more power over it.”To determine the most charmed towns the magazine analyzed data about cities with the most lottery and sweepstake winners, the most hole-in-ones on the golf course, the fewest lighting strikes, the least deaths from falling objects, and the lowest debt due to playing the lottery and race betting.”San Diego’s multiple jackpot winners, its low lightning strike count, and its low number of lightning-related injuries and deaths helped push it to the top,” Zinczenko said.Las Vegas, the gambling capital of the country, and another betting hub, Reno, Nevada, also landed in the top 10.”It is in the top 10,” Zinczenko said about Las Vegas. “And you have to remember that there would be no Vegas if all of the gamblers were lucky all of the time.”At the opposite end of the spectrum Lady Luck was shinning the least on Charleston in West Virginia. It was the town with the highest rate of deaths from falling objects, with four times as many as San Diego, and had no lottery or sweepstake winners.Tampa in Florida, Jackson, Mississippi and Memphis were also among the least lucky cities.The full list of towns can be seen here
* Financials dip, Ashmore update disappointsBy David BrettLONDON, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Britain’s top share index was
down around midday on Thursday, with miners hit by weak data
from China and financials awaiting results from U.S. bank JP
Morgan, as the bulls again lost their nerve around key technical
levels.London’s blue-chip index was down 49.67 points, or
0.9 percent at 5,392.13 at 1026 GMT, having earlier hit an
intraday high of 5456.09, as investors tested a ceiling that has
capped index gains over the past few months.”We’re at a bit of a crucial level for the FTSE; 5400 to
5435. To close above there and beyond is quite a significant
move because we’ve rejected this level on six occasions in the
past two months. Its a well-known hurdle for the index,” said
Angus Campbell, head of sales at Capital Spreads.The mining sector was the biggest drag on the
FTSE, down over 2 percent after super consumer China reported
its trade surplus narrowed in September for a second month in a
row as growth in exports and imports both came in below
forecasts, reflecting global economic weakness.Anglo American fell almost 4 percent as analysts
said if Chilean state copper giant Codelco exercised an option
to buy a 49 percent stake in Anglo American Sur, it could stunt
the miner’s growth strategy.BofA-ML said the loss of the assets could mean a $1.4
billion (9 percent) hit to group EBITDA and a 12-15 percent
decrease in earnings.Rio Tinto was dragged lower in the sell-off, down 2
percent in spite of a decent third-quarter update, and a
forecast of continued strong commodities demand.Miners, up nearly 20 percent in the last seven trading days,
have led the recent market rally, which pulled the FTSE 100 up
more than 10 percent.Investors’ sentiment had been boosted as European
politicians looked to shore up a shaky banking system and take
steps to resolve the euro zone debt crisis.Lawmakers in Slovakia struck a deal on Wednesday to ratify a
plan to bolster the euro zone’s rescue fund by Friday,
effectively ending a stand-off that had threatened the
currency’s main safety net, but analysts said that faith might
be misplaced.”Just like a second marriage, the equity market rally is a
triumph of hope over experience,” said Louise Cooper, market
analyst at BGC Partners.FINANCIALS WANEBanks such as Barclays fell, too, down
1.4 percent, though it has gained more than 30 percent since
last Tuesday.Investors were awaiting results from JP Morgan due
out at 1100 GMT for clues as to the health of the sector and a
view on the global economic outlook.Signs weren’t good from other financial stocks as Ashmore
slid 5.5 percent in heavy trade after the emerging
markets-focused investment house reported assets fell 10 percent
in the last quarter.Analysts at Charles Stanley say that while the long-term
growth story at Ashmore remains appealing, “the recent signs of
risk aversion in emerging market bonds and slower flows suggest
earnings expectations will be under pressure”.Hedge fund firm Man Group , which on Wednesday said
its flagship hedge fund posted heavy losses last week, fell 7
percent, while fund manager Schroders shed 4.4 percent
as it got caught up in the sell-off.Bucking the broader trend for the financials was Hargreaves
Lansdown , up 1.5 percent after the British investment
manager reported a robust quarterly performance against the
backdrop of falling markets.”Even in markets like this, Hargreaves will outperform as
the attractions of consolidating investments on the Vantage
platform remain regardless of equity market conditions,” Peel
Hunt said.Away from the financials, Rolls-Royce hit an all-time
high, rising 6.5 percent in strong volume after Pratt & Whitney
said it would spend $1.5 billion to buy the UK aero engine
maker’s share of the International Aero Engines consortium that
produces engines for Airbus’s A320 plane family.International Airlines Group climbed 0.7 percent as
Deutsche Bank upgraded its recommendation on the firm to “buy”
from “hold” and lifted its earnings forecasts, after robust
traffic data and on compelling valuation grounds.On the macroeconomic front, Britain’s trade figures
surprised on the upside as export values hit a record high in
August and import values fell slightly.U.S. stock index futures pointed to a lower start on Wall
Street on Thursday, ahead of international trade numbers and
latest weekly jobless claims due at 1230 GMT.
By Georgina ProdhanLONDON, Oct 12 (Reuters) - A three-day disruption to
BlackBerry services spread to North America on Wednesday,
frustrating users of the Research In Motion devices
just two days before rival Apple’s new iPhone 4S goes
on sale.RIM advised clients of an outage in the Americas and said it
was working to restore services as customers in Europe, the
Middle East, Africa and India continued to suffer patchy email
and no access to browsing and messaging.RIM, which had said on Tuesday services had returned to
normal, said later it was still working to resolve the problem.”The messaging and browsing delays … were caused by a core
switch failure within RIM’s infrastructure,” it said. “As a
result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now
working to clear that backlog and restore normal service.”RIM did not say how long it might take. In India, top mobile
carrier Bharti Airtel sent text messages to customers
saying BlackBerry services were likely to be restored in four to
five hours.The service disruptions are the worst since an outage swept
north America two years ago, and come as Apple prepares to put
on sale its already sold-out iPhone 4S on Friday.”It’s a blow upon a bruise. It comes at a bad time,” said
Richard Windsor, global technology specialist at Nomura.”One possibility could be that it encourages client
companies to look more at other options such as allowing users
to connect their own devices to the corporate server and save
themselves the cost of buying everyone a BlackBerry.”Many companies, no longer seeing the need to pay to be
locked into RIM’s secure proprietary email service, have already
begun allowing employees to use alternative smartphones,
particularly Apple’s iPhone, for corporate mail.RIM has made inroads into the youth market attracted by its
free BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service, partially compensating
for its losses in the corporate market. But new products like
its PlayBook tablet computer have been poorly received.Following a dismal set of quarterly results and a plunge in
its share price, some investors are now calling for a break-up,
sale or change of management at the company.In the United Arab Emirates, telecoms provider Etisalat
said it would compensate its BlackBerry customers with
three days of free usage, but most users were left with no
offers of compensation and scant information.Customers tweeted their increasing frustration, while RIM’s
own official Twitter feed was last updated on Tuesday night,
saying only that problems were being resolved and it was sorry
for the inconvenience.Veteran British entrepreneur Alan Sugar, who founded
electronics company Amstrad in 1968, tweeted: “In all my years
in IT biz, I have never seen such an outage as experienced by
Blackberry. I can’t understand why it’s taking so long to fix.”Some customers used humour to deal with the situation. One
joke making the rounds on Twitter said: “What did the one BBM
user say to the other? Nothing.”
Tata Power , Reliance Power and Adani
Power in 2006 won contracts to supply low-cost power
at fixed tariffs of under 2.3 rupees ($0.05) per kWh which they
now cannot do without huge losses due to higher coal prices.The power companies have been overtaken by events since
2006, mainly the rise in global coal prices and the Indonesian
government’s determination to stop coal being sold below
benchmark prices, including existing term contracts.Indonesia’s government in 2010 issued a regulation stating
that export coal must be sold at a minimum reference price
issued by the government, based on three benchmark prices
.Work on the plants has almost ground to a halt while the
firms lobby the Indian authorities to be able to pass on the
multi-fold rise in coal costs, which were less than $50 a tonne
CIF when deals were done but are now over $120.”Coal prices are much higher now anyway than they were five
years ago because demand is higher and it’s true that Indonesian
coal now has to be at minimum prices approved by the government
but the real problem was aggressive under-bidding on the
tariffs,” said a power producer who asked to remain anonymous.”Those tariffs of 2.2, 2.3 rupees were always way too low
and they have got to rise, it’s the only way,” he added.Bidders had to go in with very low tariffs because the
Indian authorities have not forgotten Enron’s Maharashtra
coastal plant for which the state paid Enron 4.6 rupees per
power unit but collected only 1.89 rupees from customers.India’s coal imports are set to hit 150 million tonnes a
year within a few years, a large chunk of which will be
low-grade coal for the so-called Ultra Mega Power Projects
(UMPPs), most of which are coastal and which would take all or
partly imported coal . India is likely to import
around 70 million tonnes in 2011 according to importers.”Four UMPPs are nearly built but halted, ours at Mundra,
three of Reliance,” said Amulya Charan, Managing Director of
Tata Power Trading Company Limited, who chairs the power
producers’ association which represents the developers and is
lobbying on their behalf.”We are stuck based on the power and coal contracts which we
have but we are lobbying the ministry of power, the procurers,
the finance ministry and the Prime Minister - we are actually
meeting on a daily basis,” Charan said.”There will be some impact on the rate of coal import growth
because of the delays to the UMPPs but I hope there will be a
resolution quickly, within four months,” he added.”I’ve told the coal suppliers if you want to increase your
imports to India, first the power tariffs must rise,” he said.”The power is needed urgently already,” Charan said.”I’m in Delhi and there were two hour power cuts across the
city yesterday so I’m optimistic,” he said.Other Indian power producers and Indonesian coal suppliers
with contracts to supply them were not convinced a swift
solution will be found.”There’s no question that India needs the power and while
the economy has slowed, the need remains so I’m sure the tariffs
will rise to allow the UMPPs to continue but these things take
time,” one of Indonesia’s biggest coal exporters to India said.”The coal demand which would come from these UMPPs will be
pushed back by anywhere from 6 months to a year, it’ll slow the
rate at which imports grow,” he added.
