Last week, Aston Martin announced the impending arrival of its all-new Vulcan hypercar.

Aston claims this will be the most extreme car in company history.

And based on the latest teaser trailer released by the British car maker, we certainly believe those claims.

In the video, an Aston Martin One-77 or Vanquish-esque car with a massive racing spoiler revs its engines as the car's side exhausts bellow flames. This seems to confirm the rumors that he Vulcan will be a track-only car in the same realm as the Ferrari FXX K and McLaren P1 GTR.

The Vulcan, which will make its world debut on March 3, 2015 at the Geneva Motor Show, has its roots in Aston's recent foray into LeMans-style endurance sports car racing. 

 Few new details have emerged about the Vulcan. With that said, the total production run for the hypercar is expected to be less than 30 vehicles. 

Car Magazine reported last week, that the Vulcan is believed to be destined to supplant the One-77 hypercar as Aston Martin's new "halo" vehicle — a car that's designed to attract attention, and a lot of it. The publication projects that the new car will carry an asking price north of the $1.7 million Aston charged for the One-77. 

Taking over as the new halo car means that the Vulcan will likely best the One-77's 750 horsepower and 220 mph top speed, as well. 

Stay tuned. We'll keep you posted if any new information comes available.

SEE ALSO: Audi's new R8 supercar is here but the US government won't let you have its coolest feature

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A tanker truck carrying 9,000 gallons of fuel just burst into flames

Miami (AFP) - With peanut allergies on the rise worldwide, a study found that contrary to previous advice, feeding foods containing peanuts to babies before 11 months of age may help prevent allergies.

The findings in the New England Journal of Medicine are based on a British study of 640 children, aged four months to 11 months, who were considered at high risk of becoming allergic to peanuts either because of a pre-existing egg allergy or eczema, which can be linked to peanut allergy.

Researchers at Evelina London Children's Hospital randomized the children into two groups -- some were fed foods containing pureed peanuts and others were told to avoid peanuts until they turned five -- to see if avoiding peanuts was really the best way to prevent peanut allergy.

They found that by age five, fewer than one percent of the children who ate food containing peanuts three or more times each week developed a peanut allergy, compared to 17.3 percent in the group that avoided peanuts entirely.

The final results did not include 13 out of 319 randomized children who were excused after showing signs of peanut allergy early in the study.

The children involved in the research were also not fed whole peanuts, which can be a choking hazard.

"This is an important clinical development and contravenes previous guidelines," said Gideon Lack, head of the Pediatric Allergy Department at King's College London, who led the LEAP (Learning Early About Peanut Allergy) study. 

"Whilst these were withdrawn in 2008 in the UK and US, our study suggests that new guidelines may be needed to reduce the rate of peanut allergy in our children," added Lack, who presented the findings at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology meeting in Houston, Texas. 

Lack urged parents of babies and young children with eczema or egg allergies to consult with their pediatrician about the possibility of trying to introduce peanuts into their children's diet.

- Rising worldwide -

Some experts said the study points to a new way of reducing peanut allergies, which have more than doubled in the last 10 years in Britain and North America.

"We have always been suspicious of a possible increased incidence of allergy to peanuts, and perhaps other foods, due to a delayed introduction of those foods usually occurring after the age of three," said Paul Lang, a pediatric allergist at North Shore Allergy and Asthma Institute in New York, who was not involved in the study.

"This study points to a possible earlier introduction of food to decrease the ability to become allergic to those foods."

An allergy to peanuts can develop early in life. It is rarely outgrown and can be fatal. 

About one in 50 school age children in Britain are allergic to peanuts. The condition is estimated to affect one to three percent of children in the developed world. Incidence is also rising in Asia and Africa.

Further work, known as the LEAP-On study, aims to research whether the same effects could be maintained if the children stopped eating peanuts for 12 months. 

"Although there are still many unanswered questions about natural history of peanut and other food allergies, this study provides new valuable practical information," said Blanka Kaplan, pediatric allergist at Cohen Children's Medical Center in New York. Kaplan was not involved in the study.

"It underscores the benefits of early peanut introduction and harm of unnecessary delay of peanut consumption in infants with risk for allergic diseases."

Join the conversation about this story »

Stock prices have been rising faster than earnings are expected to grow.

As a result, valuations have been getting richer, with the price-to-expected-earnings ratio reaching 17.1, the highest level since December 2004.

"The current forward 12-month P/E ratio of 17.1 is now well above the three most recent historical averages: 5-year (13.6), 10-year (14.1), and 15-year (16.0)," FactSet's John Butters said.

Recently, the disconnect between stock prices and earnings expectations has been more about falling earnings expectations than surging stock prices (see chart below).

"For Q1 2015 and Q2 2015, analysts are now predicting year-over-year earnings declines of 4.1% and 1.1%, respectively," FactSet's John Butters noted. "On December 31, analysts were projecting growth of 4.0% and 5.2% for these same two quarters. Most of the decline in the expected earnings growth rates for both quarters can be attributed to analysts lowering earnings forecasts for companies in the Energy sector."

This of course is due to plunging oil prices.

Butters notes that the price-to-expected-earnings ratio for energy-sector stocks is very high at 27.6.

"Nine of the ten sectors have forward 12-month P/E ratios that are above their 10-year averages, led by the Energy (27.6 vs. 12.0) sector," Butters said. "The only sector with a forward 12-month P/E ratio below the 10-year average is the Telecom Services (14.0 vs. 14.9) sector."

Keep in mind, the fact valuations are above average does not mean they will collapse immediately. Valuations tend to drift, which means the price-to-expected-earnings ratio may go much higher.

SEE ALSO: The Disruptive Forces That Will Shape The S&P 500 In 2015

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Nationwide's Super Bowl commercial about dead children is about corporate profits ... in a way that we can all appreciate

Kiev (AFP) - Pro-Russian forces massing near Ukraine's port city of Mariupol are continuing to attack government troop positions, Kiev said, fuelling concerns for the fate of a UN-backed ceasefire.

Continued hostilities meant a pull-back of heavy weapons could not go ahead as agreed, Ukrainian officials said.

"As Ukrainian positions are still being fired upon there can be no talk yet of a withdrawal of arms," military spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov wrote in a statement on Facebook on Monday. 

Tensions were also high following a bomb blast Sunday in the normally peaceful eastern city of Kharkiv. In their latest toll, authorities said that three people had died in the "terrorist" attack.

Ukraine's currency, the hryvnia, plummeted some 10 percent on Monday because of the instability.

The West has warned of additional sanctions on Russia should the shaky truce deteriorate further, especially after rebels captured the strategic town of Debaltseve last week in defiance of the ceasefire slated to start February 15.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, tasked with monitoring the truce, "concludes that the ceasefire is not holding in critical, strategic points," including near Mariupol and in Debaltseve, the deputy head of the OSCE mission, Alexander Hug, told France 24 television.

A meeting of the foreign ministers of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France was scheduled to take place in Paris on Tuesday to discuss the truce's implementation. 

However a source in the Ukrainian foreign ministry raised doubt, saying Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin "intends to go to the meeting tomorrow (Tuesday) but the situation might change."

- Rebels attacking -

The latest fighting came as Russian President Vladimir Putin said he thought the prospect of all-out war between Russia and Ukraine was unlikely.

Asked in an interview with Russian state television if he thought the current situation could lead to war, Putin said: "I think that such an apocalyptic scenario is unlikely and I hope that it will never happen."

"If the Minsk accords (agreeing a ceasefire) are complied with, then I am sure that the situation will gradually get back to normal."

He added: "No one needs a conflict, moreover an armed one, on the periphery of Europe."

A Ukrainian military commander, Colonel Valentyn Fedichev, said that, while the number of attacks had generally decreased across the conflict zone, troop positions were still fired upon 27 times since Sunday. Two Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 10 wounded, he said.

Insurgent fighters "have not halted attempts to assault our positions in the town of Shyrokine and the Mariupol area," Fedichev said.

Other defence officials said the rebels fired mortars into Shyrokine, which neighbours Mariupol, in an apparent attempt to provoke troops into firing back in violation of the ceasefire.

Kiev has alleged Russia sent 20 tanks towards Mariupol, a port city of half a million residents on the Azov Sea coast, and that two tank attacks occurred there on Sunday.

Moscow denies giving military support to the rebels. However it made the same denials over Crimea -- the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula that it annexed last year -- before finally admitting that it had deployed troops.

If Mariupol were to fall to the pro-Russian rebels, it would remove a key obstacle to creating a separatist land corridor stretching from Russia's border with Ukraine to Crimea.

The United States and the European Union, however, have strongly warned against further breaches of the ceasefire, with Washington saying extra sanctions could be imposed on Russia within days.

"An advance on Mariupol would clearly be in breach of the agreements" underpinning the truce brokered by Berlin and Paris, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in an interview with his country's Bild newspaper.

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said: "It fills us with concern that there is still no comprehensive truce."

Germany and France brokered the truce this month in the Belarus capital Minsk, and it was subsequently endorsed by the UN Security Council.

Up to now, the main compliance with the Minsk agreement has been a prisoner swap conducted on Saturday in which nearly 200 captured fighters from both sides were traded.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said during a visit to Estonia that, "from the experience of the last 10 to 12 days, the Russian engagement in the Minsk (truce) process is rather cynical."

He expressed a "high degree of scepticism about a Russian commitment to achieving genuine peace in Ukraine on anything but terms unilaterally dictated from the Kremlin".

Russia has already been hit by successive rounds of Western sanctions that are savaging its economy, which is headed for recession because of a collapse in oil prices.

Join the conversation about this story »

Canberra (AFP) - West Indies won the toss and chose to bat against Zimbabwe in the World Cup Pool B match at Canberra's Manuka Oval on Tuesday.

The West Indians celebrated their first victory of the tournament with a thumping 150-run win over Pakistan in Christchurch, while Zimbabwe also posted their first points with a four-wicket triumph against the United Arab Emirates.

Join the conversation about this story »

London (AFP) - HSBC's boss fended off criticism about receiving his bonuses through a Swiss bank account held by a Panamanian-registered company, as the banking giant reported a 15-percent drop in annual net profits.

Chief executive Stuart Gulliver was forced to react to a report about his finances in The Guardian newspaper, which has led coverage in Britain of an international tax-dodging scandal at the bank's Swiss division.

"I pay full UK tax on my entire worldwide earnings," Gulliver told reporters in a conference call, adding that the report about his account had not "in any way" impacted his leadership of the London-based bank.

He also admitted, however, that some of the practices of HSBC's Swiss private banking arm in the past had been "a source of shame and reputational damage" and said he considered them "very unacceptable".

The report on Gulliver came after claims that HSBC helped clients from around the world dodge taxes on accounts containing 180 billion euros ($204 billion), which are being investigated in several countries and have caused a political storm in Britain.

The scandal has tarnished the reputation of HSBC, which was quick to react to the latest allegations.

HSBC's chairman Douglas Flint said there was "absolutely nothing that Stuart has done that is other than transparent, legal and appropriate".

The bank explained in a statement emailed to AFP that Gulliver had opened his account in 1998 when he was working in Hong Kong and had put it in the name of a Panamanian company "for reasons of confidentiality".

It said Gulliver, who moved to Britain from Hong Kong in 2003, had "voluntarily declared his Swiss account to UK tax authorities for a number of years".

The bank also noted that Gulliver's overall compensation slid by five percent last year to £7.6 million ($11.7 million, 10.3 million euros) after performance-related pay was cut by over a third. 

The bank apologised again on Monday over the so-called "SwissLeaks" allegations, saying they served as a reminder "of how much there still is to do and how far society's expectations have changed in terms of banks' responsibilities."

HSBC also revealed on Monday that 2014 earnings plunged in a "challenging year" that was blighted by fines and compensation for mis-selling.

Earnings after taxation or net profits sank 15 percent to $13.7 billion (12.0 billion euros) last year, HSBC said in a separate results statement.

That compared with $18.7 billion in 2013 when its performance was also boosted by disposals.

Pre-tax profits tumbled 17 percent to $18.7 billion, which dashed expectations and sent HSBC's share price sliding almost six percent in London.

"2014 was a challenging year in which we continued to work hard to improve business performance while managing the impact of a higher operating cost base," Gulliver said in the earnings release.

"Profits disappointed, although a tough fourth quarter masked some of the progress made over the preceding three quarters," he added.

"Many of the challenging aspects of the fourth quarter results were common to the industry as a whole."

HSBC shares closed the day down 4.63 percent to 577.2 pence on London's benchmark FTSE 100 index of top companies, which edged 0.04 percent lower to 6,912.16 points.

Join the conversation about this story »

Earlier this week, it came out that Lenovo had shipped a piece of software called Superfish on a bunch of new computers.

Turns out, 

the software was a potential security nightmare. It hijacked security certificates from web sites that the user was visiting, which could have allowed hackers to steal user information using the same technique. 

Lenovo formally apologized for Superfish yesterday, and admitted that even before the security problems became obvious, it was considering removing Superfish because it "frustrated some users without adding value to the experience."

This was an extreme example of what's come to be called "crapware"— software that PC makers ship on new machines not because it provides any particular value to the customer, but because these software companies pay them for distribution. 

PC makers have done this for decades. It's one way they can make a little extra money in what has long been a commoditized market.

Most PCs are roughly the same — they run the same versions of Windows and have a lot of the same hardware components, so the only way PC makers can really compete is on price. Bundling this kind of software helps them fight this race to the bottom.

But there's one PC maker that doesn't need to bundle crapware: Microsoft.

The Surface hasn't been a great business for Microsoft. The first version of Surface ran a specialized tablet-only version of Windows that could not run older applications. It was a flop, and Microsoft had to write down almost $1 billion in unsold inventory.

But eventually Microsoft moved away from the tablet focus and turned Surface into more of a MacBook Air competitor — only with a detachable keyboard and a touch screen. The current version, the Surface Pro 3, has been selling pretty well and has been profitable for Microsoft for the last two quarters.

The thing is, Surface was never meant to be a huge money maker. Microsoft makes its money on software, not hardware.

Surface was meant to show the best possible user experience for Windows. It was to show how Microsoft had designed an operating system that worked on traditional PCs and touch-screen tablets. It was to show off interesting hardware innovations, like the detachable keyboard. It was meant to spur Microsoft's hardware partners to take advantage of Windows 8 in the same way.

And while Windows 8 had some fundamental problems, at least you knew that if you bought a Surface, Microsoft wouldn't load it down with a bunch of junky software from other companies. 

Under Satya Nadella, Microsoft is rethinking its Windows business. But the Superfish incident shows that there's still a really good reason for Microsoft to keep making its own PCs.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This Excel trick will save you time and impress your boss

Vienna (AFP) - European surgeons and engineers have devised a mind-controlled bionic hand that restores function almost as well as a flesh-and-blood transplant, but without the risk of rejection, a research paper said Wednesday.

The three Austrian beneficiaries of the unprecedented technique had suffered injuries in car and climbing accidents to the "brachial plexus" -- a network of nerves running from the spine to the upper limbs.

This type of injury is like a sort of "inner amputation," irreversibly separating the hand from neural signals, said the study published in The Lancet medical journal.

The three patients received their futuristic robot appendages in surgeries between April 2011 and May 2014.

"For the first time since their accidents all three men were able to accomplish various everyday tasks such as picking up a ball, pouring water from a jug, using a key, cutting food with a knife or using two hands to undo buttons," said a statement from The Lancet.

Oskar Aszmann of the Medical University of Vienna, who invented the technique, said it was in some ways less risky than a donor hand transplant, which requires the use of strong immunosuppressant drugs that can cause serious health problems.

- 'Not flesh and blood' -

In the case of a single hand lost, "I think the benefits sway towards the prosthetic reconstruction, because it doesn't have any side-effects and the quality of hand function being restored with the prosthesis is almost as good of that of a hand transplant," the surgeon told AFP.

"Yes, we don't have sensibility (feeling)" with a bionic hand, he conceded. "It is not flesh and blood, it's just plastic and componentry, but if you just look at it from a functional point of view, I think a prosthetic hand today can hold up to a hand transplant."

Cases where both hands are lost, however, are "still the domain of hand transplantation because of the loss of sensibility and the fact that you need to put on a prosthesis with another hand."

The team's major achievement, said the statement, had been to allow neuronal signals to stimulate the robot hand equipped with sensors that respond to electrical impulses in the muscles.

"Existing surgical techniques for such injuries are crude and ineffective and result in poor hand function," said Aszmann.

For their method, the team grafted muscle tissue taken from the thigh to the patients' forearms, and added nerves taken from elsewhere.

Before having their useless hands selectively amputated, the patients underwent nine months of training to activate the grafted muscle, and then learned to use the electrical signals to control a virtual hand.

Once they mastered that, they practiced with a prosthetic hand attached with a splint to their non-functioning hand.

The prosthesis costs about 15,000 euros ($17,000) and the surgery and rehabilitation about the same, said Aszmann.

"Some patients, in the end, will not be candidates for bionic reconstruction, either because there are not sufficient nerves available for reconstruction or they are psychologically not fit for that, or the environment is just not OK," he said.

The technique has since been successfully used in at least one person born without the use of a hand.

Join the conversation about this story »

The consumer payments industry processes a massive volume of electronic transactions — about $2.7 trillion in 2015 in the US, just in card-based payments. With so much money in play, it's no wonder that a host of mobile-centric startups are trying to carve out a niche for themselves. 

These app-based startups are entering into an extremely complex and entrenched space. And so they have tended to differentiate and pursue distinct strategies and business models, which we've grouped into five main types. 

In a new report from BI Intelligence, we offer a high-level look at the payments industry— how it functions, who the key players are, and the new mobile disruptors shaping the industry. We start by explaining credit-card processing, since the majority of consumer payments and transaction volume flow through this system. From there we take a look at how consumers' move to mobile devices is changing the way we pay, which players stand to benefit, and explain why certain parts of this chain are particularly vulnerable to disruption.

Access the Full Report By Signing Up For A Risk-Free Membership Today >>

Here are how the 5 main types of apps turning payments on its head:

• Mobile wallets— apps people use to pay in stores — excite retailers because they can offer rich data about customers' transactions that can be used to improve the customer experience, increase foot traffic, and lead to larger tickets. 
• Over a trillion dollars in informal payments are made globally each year. These run the gamut from paying a babysitter to paying a friend back for a meal. Most of these transactions are currently made with cash or checks. But peer-to-peer (P2P) mobile-payment apps promise to change that
• Phone-only payment apps like Seamless and OpenTable bridge the gap between mobile-commerce apps and mobile wallets for in-store purchases. These apps allow users to make purchases for in-store products entirely on the user's smartphone.
  
• Carrier billingcurrently accounts for about $4 billion in transactions globally. The payment method allows consumers to make purchases by adding the value of a transaction to their mobile bill. It's primarily used for purchasing digital goods like apps and music, but in some instances it is used for making purchases in the real world as well.
• Remittances— money sent to friends and family abroad — are undergoing a rapid transformation as a result of the migration to mobile.

In full, the report:

• Predicts how disruption will affect the industry. 
• Investigates the three main trends shaping the payment ecosystem going forward: EMV, disruptive tech, and card fraud. 
• Explains how transactions are processed through three steps: authorizing, batching, and funding. 
• Gauges the impact of mobile point-of-sale payment terminals on the payments software and hardware industries
• Provides 9 infographics and diagrams explaining how card transactions are processed and which players are involved in each step. 
• Analyzes the key trends and and forces that will shape they payments industry going forward. 
• Details how mobile is shaping 5 types of consumer payment technologies and which companies to watch for within each category. 

For full access to all BI Intelligence's charts and data on the Payments Industry, sign up for a risk-free trial.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do

HP's massive layoffs will continue beyond 55,000 people, thanks to its plans to separate into two huge companies, CFO Cathie Lesjak indicated on Tuesday.

This shouldn't be a shock. 

As soon as HP started talking about its plans to split itself from one ginormous company into two enormous ones, people started asking about layoffs. Both Lesjak and CEO Meg Whitman have been hinting for months that the separation would probably involve more cuts.

HP is so big, with more than 300,000 employees, that when it separates it will create two Fortune 50-sized companies. Any such reorganization normally includes job cuts. 

Plus, HP is already in the midst of a headcount reduction that began in 2012 and has grown from an initial target of 27,000 to 55,000. 

On Tuesday's earnings call, Lesjak said 2,800 people had "exited the company" during the quarter that ended in January. Not all left via layoffs: We know long-term HP employees who have taken early retirement packages or left for new jobs.

So far, 44,000 people have been cut under HP's 2012 plan. By October, when HP's fiscal year ends, "55,000 people are expected to exit. However, we do anticipate incremental opportunity for operational improvements identified through the separation process," said Lesjak on the call.

In other words, she doesn't know — or isn't saying yet — how many people the company will cut as it splits but it sees an opportunity to cut more.

We've talked to some HP employees, and they aren't particularly worried. That's because while cutting, HP is also investing in hot areas like cloud, networking, and advanced systems, and there are long-term career options for many people in those business units.

SEE ALSO: HP will spend about $2 billion for its 'unprecedented' separation into two Fortune 50 companies

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This guy went from homeless to making $25,000 per Vine

Every year, Consumer Reports and its team of expert evaluators test and scrutinize virtually every car sold in the United States. Out those cars, there are a select few that stand above the rest and join the vaunted group of vehicles known as Consumer Reports' Top Picks.

To become a Top Pick, a car must excel at the publication's track tests, offer average or better reliability and perform effectively in government or industry crash tests.

For 2015, Consumer Reports has selected 10 cars ranging from an environmentally friendly hybrid to a family minivan.  Of the 10 cars selected, six come from Japanese manufacturers, three come from American firms and one hails from Germany.

So here they are, Consumer Reports' Top Picks of 2015.

Best Compact Car: Subaru Impreza

Price as tested: $21,345

Why it's on the list: In a segment filled with big names and even bigger reputations, the Subaru Impreza manages to take the top spot on the list with a strong overall package. The publication was impressed by the Impreza's great interior, quiet ride, strong handling, and value for money. 

Best Midsized Sedan: Subaru Legacy

Price as tested: $24,837

Why it's on the list: Like its Impreza sibling, the Legacy also bested some of the most popular cars in the business to become a Top Pick. Consumer Reports found the Subaru to offer a quiet and comfortable driving experience, along with the best ride quality in the segment. 

Best Large Car: Chevrolet Impala V6

Price as tested: $39,110

Why it's on the list: "The Chevrolet Impala is proof that General Motors can still build a great family car, " Consumer Reports automotive content specialist Mike Quincy told Business Insider.

In fact, "[the]Impala humbles the Toyota Avalon and even the Lexus ES 350" Consumer Reports wrote. That's truly high praise. The publication also praised the big Chevy for its comfortable ride, responsive handling, and great value for the money.

New York-based property management company Cushman & Wakefield may be headed toward a sale. Sources tell the Wall Street Journal the Agnelli family, which owns the firm, is seeking a buyer in what could be a multi-billion dollar deal.

Exor SpA – the investment wing of the Agnelli family that manages Cushman has reportedly chosen Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to spearhead the potential sale, according to WSJ.

The firm, established in 1917, oversees 250 offices worldwide and employs 16,000 employees.

The Agnelli family spent just over $565 million for an initial 70% stake in Cushman & Wakefield in 2007, and has been a majority stakeholder since.

Cushman ranks third among the largest real estate property managers globally, behind CBRE Group, Inc. and Jones Lang Lasalle, Inc.

The company is already having a busy 2015, having completed major acquisitions of New York's top investment sales firm, Massey Knakal Realty Services in January and California-based Property Tax Resources in February.

A spokeswoman for Cushman & Wakefield did not confirm the company's plans for a sale, telling the Journal Exor and Cushman "continually seek ways to further enhance the business, create value and further accelerate" corporate objectives, adding "there is currently no transactions to disclose."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This Excel trick will save you time and impress your boss

For years, we've been reporting on HP's troubled Enterprise Services business unit. That's the group that handles consulting, outsourcing, and other hands-on services for big HP customers.

On Tuesday, HP executives said that the company's promised turnaround rests on this unit finally getting its act together.

On Tuesday, HP reported earnings for the quarter ended in January. Revenue was down 5% overall from last year's quarter, across nearly all units.

But Enterprise Services revenue dropped 11% from a year ago. 

On the quarterly conference call with analysts, CEO Meg Whitman and CFO Cathie Lesjak spanked Enterprise Services (or ES) with a back-handed compliment.

HP had just offered grim guidance on profits for the next quarter, and explained that most of that was because of foreign exchange rates. They insisted when measuring performance using constant currency, they would end 2015 with flat overall revenues. That means HP would stop shrinking.

"ES, this will be the key," Whitman said. "We expect better revenue performance from ES in the second half."

She described the situation like water draining out of the tub.

"Think of it like the bathtub and the water is going to stop draining out of the bathtub as fast as it has, so the water we pour in ought to lead to a rising level in the tub," Whitman said.

Then she qualified that even if ES revenue isn't exactly rising, she expects the unit to have "a much slower rate of decline by the end of the year .... But we have to continue to execute."

Cathie Lesjak agreed precisely that "HP ES is key" to flat revenues next year when comparing constant currency.

Earlier in the day, HP had announced a huge, 10-year, multi-billion customer contract with Deutsche Bank where the bank hired HP to build it a more efficient data center that uses "hybrid cloud" technology. Lesjak told analysts on the call that HP has also already won another big deal that hasn't been announced yet.

"Key account runoff that we've been talking about really abates in the second half of the year," she said.

In other words, the customers that have decided not to renew huge outsourcing contracts with HP will be mostly cleared out.

The situation isn't entirely HP's fault. Giant decade-long outsourcing contracts have gone out of vogue these days. Companies today are using more cloud computing, buying apps as a service, and updating their data centers to be less expensive and more efficient, a trend called hybrid computing.

But HP is also facing a ton of competition for this highly lucrative hybrid computing work from old competitors like IBM and new ones like Red Hat.

The numbers certainly show that the bleeding at HP Enterprise Services has to end. The group's revenue decreased 11% last quarter from a year ago. It dropped 7% the quarter before, 6% the previous quarter, and down by another 7%, and another 7% ... you get the idea.

This unit has seen its fair share of HP's 55,000 layoffs that are still going on. Employees at the unit tell us managers come and go like a drive-through. 

SEE ALSO: Microsoft chairman John Thompson tells us about his insanely fabulous life and his $100 million startup

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's what it takes to master any job — not just be good at it

China's manufacturing sector is doing a bit better than expected.

The country's flash manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) unexpectedly climbed to a four-month high of 50.1 in February from 49.7 in January.

Economists were expecting the index to fall to 49.5.

Any reading above 50 signals expansion, so this is marginally good news.

"Domestic demand firmed while new export orders contracted for the first time since April 2014," HSBC's Hongbin Qu said. "Both input and output prices remain in contraction."

"Today's data point to a marginal improvement in the Chinese manufacturing sector going into the Chinese New Year period in February," Qu added. "However, domestic economic activity is likely to remain sluggish and external demand looks uncertain. We believe more policy easing is still warranted at the current stage to support growth."

Keep in mind, this is a preliminary estimate of this report. The final version will be released on March 2.

Markets in Asia are up with Japan's Nikkei up 0.1% and Australia's S&P/ASX up 0.2%.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Nationwide's Super Bowl commercial about dead children is about corporate profits ... in a way that we can all appreciate

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly has been facing accusations he exaggerated his experiences covering the Falklands War in 1982. The allegations center on a protest that occurred in Buenos Aires after Argentina surrendered to the United Kingdom.

O'Reilly has defended himself by saying comments he made on air and in his non-fiction books about his experiences covering the war and its aftermath were accurate.

It's worth noting, however, that he also described those exact protests in a 1998 novel he wrote where he presented an extremely exaggerated version of the event. 

O'Reilly's book was titled "Those Who Trespass: A Novel of Murder and Television." It is clearly a work of fiction, but several critics have pointed out the central characters bear a clear resemblance to O'Reilly. In 2004, the late Michael Hastings said the book offers "an inside view of the author’s mind." The New Yorker's Nicholas Lemann described the main characters as two versions of O'Reilly's "alter ego."

One of those characters is Shannon Michaels, who like O'Reilly, is a tall, Irish-American journalist who was sent to cover the Falklands War for a television network. The protest is a life-changing moment for Michaels where, as he puts it, he "almost got killed."

In O'Reilly's story, Michaels is on the scene reporting for the fictional network GNN on June 15, 1982 when thousands of Argentines angry over the surrender rioted in front of the president's residence, La Casa Rosada. O'Reilly has said he was also there reporting for CBS News, but his accounts of the protest have been disputed.

O'Reilly has described his experience covering the aftermath of the Falklands conflict as being in a "war zone" and "combat situation." He has also said "many were killed" at the protest and that his cameraman was injured. These claims were disputed by a series of reports in Mother Jones and several of his former colleagues who have said no one was killed and no CBS staff was injured. 

The account of the protest presented by O'Reilly in his novel is an even more dramatic scene of death and destruction. 

In O'Reilly's novel the protest was broken up by soldiers, or as the author put it, "combat-ready shock troops dressed in full battle gear and armed with machine guns." At this point, Michaels, one of the characters described as O'Reilly's fictional "alter ego" realized he "had to get away" with his cameraman and soundman. As Michaels and his crew escaped, the soldiers let loose on the crowd.

"Without warning, they began firing directly into the crowd," O'Reilly wrote, adding, "Hundreds of people immediately fell onto the cement."

O'Reilly wrote that Michaels "saw one man take a bullet squarely in the right eye" and he "was killed instantly." He described "ten thousand tightly packed demonstrators ... desperately trying to get away from the gunfire any way they could."

These scenes written by O'Reilly contradict contemporaneous reports of the real-life protest, which do not describe widespread gunfire or any deaths. 

At this point in O'Reilly's tale, Michaels' cameraman and soundman, "Francisco" and "Juan" are knocked down by "a pack of fleeing young men." Michaels comes to their rescue by "fighting his way through the panicked mob." After their rescue, the two men are concerned with retrieving an expensive camera they dropped in the melee.

"Fuck the camera, it's gone. Get moving," Michaels declared.

Juan resists Michaels' order leading the heroic journalist to hit him with what O'Reilly described as a "murderous" look and an order to, "Get the fuck out of here Juan."

"The soundman finally got the message and moved out," O'Reilly wrote.

O'Reilly's story continued with Michaels carrying his injured cameraman away amid "gunfire and screams." As they escaped. Michaels noticed his colleague was bleeding badly and needed to get to a doctor. This was no simple task in O'Reilly's fictionalized version of the protest.

"Movement of any kind would not be easy," O'Reilly wrote, continuing, "The crowd was in complete disarray. Scores of dead and wounded lay on the cold concrete."

This scene echoed O'Reilly's claim a CBS cameraman was injured, which has been disputed by his colleagues. 

In O'Reilly's novel, before Michaels and his were able to escape, they faced two more life-threatening obstacles.

Michaels was involved in a tense standoff with a soldier who had "an M-16 pointed directly at his head." Just as they were about to drive off they were also stopped by a secret policeman who attempted to take their tapes. Michaels eliminated the threat by knocking out the secret policeman with a punch O'Reilly described as guided by "pure instinct" and "pure adrenaline" that was fueled by the "violence" he "had just experienced." 

The protest is pivotal in O'Reilly's novel. After the dramatic escape, a colleague attempted to take Michaels' notes and tapes from the protest. This causes Michaels to have a violent outburst that leads to him getting ousted from the network. 

Michaels' rage at his co-workers who try to take credit for his Falklands reporting is reminiscent of claims the real-life O'Reilly has made about his experiences in Argentina. O'Reilly has implied other CBS reporters were not on the ground covering the protest, another claim which has been disputed.

In O'Reilly's book, losing his job sends Michaels on a murderous rampage against the people he believes wronged him. He is eventually stopped by the other character identified by the New Yorker as O'Reilly's "alter ego," Tom O'Malley, a cop from the Fox News host's hometown on Long Island.

Along the way, there are plenty of raunchy sex scenes including one where Michaels shows a fellow journalist something he "learned in Thailand." This comment was reminiscent of one O'Reilly allegedly made to a producer, Andrea Mackris, who sued him for sexual harassment in 2004 and, among other things, accused him of telling her about his experiences at a "sex show" in Thailand. O'Reilly subsequently settled that lawsuit.

While the characters in O'Reilly's novel bear clear similarities to the Fox News host, the account of the protest in Argentina differs wildly from the stories of the real-life incident.

In his book, O'Reilly described many deaths, heavy gunfire, and injured colleagues. The CBS News report broadcast after the actual protest described police armed with "clubs and tear gas" and "at least some serious injuries" including "some television crew members ... knocked to the ground." A New York Times article about the protest noted one police officer "pulled a pistol, firing five shots over the heads of fleeing demonstrators." The Times story described some injuries, but no deaths.

"Several demonstrators were reported to have been injured, along with at least two reporters," the Times article said.

O'Reilly attempted to cite the Times story when he defended himself on Fox News after questions were raised about his claims. However, he omitted the detail that the officer reportedly fired over the crowd. 

Both the Associated Press and CBS reported there were 5,000 demonstrators rather than the "ten thousand" described in O'Reilly's book. 

According to the AP report on the protest, two photographers were hurt by rubber bullets and some journalists were "trampled." The AP did not report any deaths and described the violence as brief.

"Within 15 minutes the plaza was virtually deserted under a dissipating cloud of tear gas," the AP story said.

You can read Bill O'Reilly's fictionalized version of the protest, which is on page 17 through 25 of his book, here.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do

The US continues to hold the indisputable top spot in defense spending, designating more than the combined expenditures of the top 15 nations according to an annual report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The IISS' Military Balance, published earlier this month, assesses the military capabilities and national trends in defense spending of 171 countries.

According to the report, America allocated a cool $581 billion in 2014, surpassing the total combined Chinese, Saudi Arabian, Russian, British, French, German, Japanese, Indian, and South Korean military budgets by $15 billion.

China is the closest nation to follow the US at $129 billion — which is only 22% of America's overall spending. The remaining 156 surveyed nations account for $342 billion or 21% of the world's defense spending.

Here is an interactive version of the map:

SEE ALSO: The US is pretty much the sole reason global defense spending is dropping

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This 26-year-old from Baltimore took a 35,000-mile road trip and ended up fighting in the Libyan revolution

More and more Wall Street strategists* argue we should think about stocks as being in the middle phase of a long-term, multiyear, secular bull market.

"Our view, which we have held since the market bottomed in 2009, is that the current bull market is secular, not cyclical,"Charles Schwab's Liz Ann Sonders said. "Secular bull markets — like from 1949 to 1968 and 1982 to 2000 — are extended bull markets characterized by above-average annualized returns and generally less-dramatic downside risk."

"Given our view that the market is transitioning toward the second stage of a secular bull market ("acceptance"), we believe US stocks are poised to provide average returns of 8-10% for at least the next three to five years, similar to historical norms,"Belski wrote in a Dec. 1 note to clients.

This is the kind of stuff that drives the bears and crash-mongers nuts.

To be fair, the folks touting the secular bull market also warn of volatility.

"[S]ince volatility is typically higher during this stage, we believe corrective phases are not out of the question and some years may be better or worse than the average (or even negative)," Belski said.

Sonders put it very bluntly at a media event Thursday, noting that the Black Monday crash of 1987 occurred in the middle of the secular bull market between 1980 and 2000.

On Oct. 19, 1987, the Dow plunged a breathtaking 22% in one day. Those days were so bad that you can see it in the chart like you can see the Great Wall of China from outer space.

For the long-term investor, even Black Monday 1987 was small compared with the returns the market eventually returned. Nevertheless, it's a good reminder to stock market investors that the risk of a crash is very real.

*This is a position floated by RBC Capital's Jonathan Golub, Morgan Stanley's Adam Parker, FundStrat's Tom Lee, BMO Capital's Brian Belski, and Charles Schwab's Liz Ann Sonders. This contrasts with folks like GMO's Jeremy Grantham and John Hussman who warn of low or negative returns.

SEE ALSO: The Single Most Important Risk To Stock Market Investors

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Nationwide's Super Bowl commercial about dead children is about corporate profits ... in a way that we can all appreciate

If you're reading up on the economy, a term you're likely to hear thrown around is secular stagnation. 

In a 2013 speech at the IMF, Harvard's Larry Summers brought the phrase — first used by Alvin Hansen in 1938 — back to talk about the current economic malaise that the global economy seemed mired in following the financial crisis. 

Citi analysts summarized Summers' use of the term and the resulting popularization as follows in a note to clients this week: "The modern version of Secular Stagnation is a catch-all term for the ills of the global economy, such as weak growth and fallinginflation."

Citi added:

The most profound implications stem from demand-led secular stagnation. In particular, that the zero bound is a problem in delivering actual stimulus while bubbles may help deliver demand(and so may be part of the toolkit and landscape for long horizons) but their ultimate collapse further entrenches the core yield declines.

And so in other words, secular stagnation puts forward the idea that interest rates at 0% might not be low enough to sufficiently stimulate an economy facing a demand shortage as stark as what some economists think we've been grappling with since the crisis.

In its note, Citi included the following graphic, showing a broad outline of what secular stagnation is made up of, why it persists, and the problems it poses. 

And this schematic at once makes it clearer what we're talking about when we talk about secular stagnation, and why we still might not all be talking about the same thing. 

Join the conversation about this story »

Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - International ratings agency Moody's said it had downgraded all ratings for scandal-plagued Brazilian oil giant Petrobras.

Until recently, Petrobras had been considered one of the best and most prestigious businesses in Brazil. But Moody's dropped its unsecured debt rating from Baa3 to Ba2.

"These rating actions reflect increasing concern about corruption investigations and liquidity pressures that might result from delays in delivering audited financial statements, as well as Moody's expectation that the company will be challenged to make meaningful reduction in its very high debt burden over the next several years," Moody's said in a statement.

It is the fourth time Moody's has downgraded Petrobras since October and it warned the oil giant's ratings remain on review for further downgrade. Some 48 percent of the company is controlled by the Brazilian state.

Petrobras is reeling from allegations of corruption on a massive scale with kickbacks and political payoffs costing Brazil's biggest company an estimated $3.8 billion.

Also on Tuesday, former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited oil workers at a union meeting and told them to stand up for Petrobras.

"We must punish those guilty of corruption but we mustn't throw Petrobras in the trash," Lula said.

Join the conversation about this story »

The jury in the trial of Eddie Ray Routh, an ex-Marine charged with killing the Navy SEAL "American Sniper" Chris Kyle and another man, has found him guilty of capital murder.

Jurors returned the verdict Tuesday night, convicting Routh of killing both Chris Kyle and Kyle's friend Chad Littlefield at a firing range southwest of Fort Worth, Texas in February 2013.

The judge read the verdict, and polled the jury, all of whom affirmed the guilty verdict.

Routh was immediately sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Over the course of the trial, defense attorneys for Routh argued the 27-year-old suffered from a mental illness, while prosecutors painted him as a drug abuser who, despite any such claims, knew the difference between right and wrong. 

The jury deliberated for a little more than two hours before reaching a verdict at a court in the rural Texas city of Stephenville.

In closing arguments before the case went to the jury, prosecutor Jane Starnes said Routh acted coldly and deliberately when he waited for Kyle to empty his gun at the range and then ambushed the two from behind before fleeing the scene Kyle's pickup truck.

A medical examiner testified that Kyle was shot six times, Littlefield seven. Both had several gunshot wounds that would have been fatal.

Defense lawyers argued that Routh was a paranoid schizophrenic and should be declared innocent by reason of insanity. “That is not insanity. That is just cold, calculated capital murder,” Starnes said.

SEE ALSO: The Incredible And Tragic Story Of The Real-Life 'American Sniper'

Join the conversation about this story »