The January report on personal income and spending is set for release at 8:30 am ET.
Expectations are for personal income to rise 0.4% over the prior month with spending expected to decline 0.1%.
This report also includes the personal consumption expenditures deflator, a measure of inflation, which is expected to show prices declined 0.5% over last month and rise 0.1% on a "core" basis, which exclude the more volatile cost of food and energy.
We'll be back with the live numbers when they hit.
Google is going to be a wireless provider just like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.
Well, maybe not just like those big companies.
At industry trade show, Mobile World Congress, Sundar Pichai said Google will do its own wireless service at a "small scale" to "show what's possible."
Google is going to be a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). An MVNO buys wireless spectrum from someone else, like AT&T, and then rebrands/repackages the service for users.
Pichai is framing Google's wireless plan as an experiment along the lines of what Google did with the Nexus phones. It wants to show bigger wireless carriers what's possible.
So, initially, this isn't going to be a big product. But, if it works, we could see Google expanding it over time.
Here are tweets from Amir Efrati, a reporter at The Information, who live tweeted Pichai talking about Google's MVNO:
1/ !! @Google's @sundarpichai at #MWC just confirmed our exclusive report on becoming an MVNO/wireless provider. https://t.co/agi6HkRJYm
— Amir Efrati (@amir) March 2, 20152/ Google doing MVNO at "small scale" to "show what's possible," get other carriers to adopt Google features. Like Nexus devices on hardware
— Amir Efrati (@amir) March 2, 20153/ @sundarpichai gives example of a feature — when call drops, Google MVNO system automatically brings call back.
— Amir Efrati (@amir) March 2, 20154/ Google MVNO launching "in the coming months."
— Amir Efrati (@amir) March 2, 20154/ Google MVNO launching "in the coming months."
— Amir Efrati (@amir) March 2, 20156/ Sundar Pichai confirms much of the details of our report, including that the service will be an experiment of sorts. But...
— Amir Efrati (@amir) March 2, 20157/ But carriers should note: Google VP Milo Medin seriously studied wireless spectrum bid last yr. And Goog could still partner with @Dish.
— Amir Efrati (@amir) March 2, 2015Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: 14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do
While it may be tough to objectively measure how smart someone is, researchers have pinpointed some pretty interesting traits that appear to indicate intelligence.
Produced by Alex Kuzoian. Illustrations by Mike Nudelman.
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Costco has entered an new co-branding agreement with Citi and Visa following the end of its deal with American Express.
Last month, American Express said it was ending the deal with Costco because "we were unable to reach terms that would have made economic sense for our Company and shareholders."
In a statement, Costco said:
Costco Wholesale Corporation ("Costco") (NASDAQ: COST) today announced it has entered into a new co-brand credit card program agreement with Citi and an acceptance and co-brand incentive agreement with Visa. The implementation of these agreements is subject to the purchase of the existing co-brand credit card portfolio by Citi.
Under the terms of the agreements, Citi, the world's largest issuer of consumer credit cards, would become the exclusive issuer of Costco's co-brand credit cards and Visa will replace American Express as the credit card network for Costco in the United States and Puerto Rico beginning April 1, 2016. Once issued, Costco's co-brand Visa credit card would provide generous rewards to Costco members, serve as the Costco membership card, and would be accepted at Costco locations in the United States and Puerto Rico, as well as all merchants worldwide that accept Visa credit cards.
Following the announcement, Visa shares were up about 2% in pre-market trade while shares of AmEx and Costco were little changed.
In notes following the news that Costco and AmEx would end their agreement, analysts estimated that the Costco business was worth about $80 billion in billed business annually to American Express.
Apple isn't at the biggest mobile conference of the year, the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, but its influence certainly is.
The halls of the Fira Barcelona convention center are littered with devices that look very similar to Apple's latest gadgets, the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and iPad Air.
What's interesting is this wasn't the case a year ago at the same conference. As Business Insider's Jay Yarow noted at the 2014 Mobile World Congress, a lot of manufacturers were copying Samsung's devices. But a year can make a big difference.
Since then, Apple caught up with the rest of the smartphone industry and released its two new big-screen iPhones, which helped it have its biggest quarter ever at the end of 2014. Meanwhile, Samsung has slipped, thanks to increased competition from Android phone makers like Xiaomi that make phones just as good as Samsung's but sell them at half the price.
Competitors, mostly Chinese Android phone manufacturers, have noticed.
Take a look at what we found roaming the halls of MWC:
Remember Jeremy Meeks?
If the name sounds familiar but you can't quite place him, let us remind you of this photo:
Right!
Jeremy Meeks is the "sexy mugshot guy," whose sultry booking photo went massively viral in the Spring of 2014 when people all over the world saw his photo on the Stockton Police Department Facebook page and declared he was hot enough to be a model.
Some even went as far as to Photoshop Meeks into Calvin Klein ads.
Now, Meeks is launching his modeling career from behind bars. ABC News reports "Meeks says he is exercising in prison to prepare for his modeling career after signing with the White Cross Management agency, saying he wants to appear in a show like 'Sons of Anarchy."'
“I’m in a place where I will be able to provide for my family and really change my life,” he told ABC News from his Nevada prison cell. He also maintains that he was not posing for his now infamous mugshot, but rather, "thinking about his family."
Meeks, who is married and has one son, said he strives to stay healthy while serving his sentence, but remains surprised that so many people found him to be attractive.
You can watch the full video from ABC News here:
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NOW WATCH: 14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do
Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister and leading Russian opposition politician, was the latest in a long series of Kremlin critics to die under strange circumstances in the past 10 years.
Some of them were murdered under everyone's eyes, like Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist who was investigating the Russian-Chechen conflict, or Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB agent who was poisoned in London, where he had fled looking for asylum. Others, like former Russian kingmaker Boris Berezovsky, were found dead in an apparent suicide.
Most of these cases remain unsolved, though they share a common theme: The deceased were critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government.
Agence France-Presse put together a graphic of a decade of killings and mysterious deaths.
Here is our own version:
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NOW WATCH: Watch the FCC Chair's impassioned defense of net neutrality
Google's search deal with Apple — which makes Google the default search engine on Apple's mobile devices — is up for renewal this year.
Since Apple and Google don't get along, Google investors are worried Apple will dump Google as the default, thus hammering Google's mobile ad revenue.
Analysts at UBS says investors are right to be worried, but they don't think it's that big of a deal. If Apple were to drop Google, it would only lead to a 3% drop in net revenue.
Here's UBS:
We estimate Google is poised to generate $7.8b of gross revenue ($5.6b net of TAC) from its iOS deal in 2015, equating to ~10% of gross revenue for the year. This represents a substantial amount of revenue at risk – that said, if Google was replaced by a competitor and our 50% switchback rate assumption proved accurate, this would represent only a ~5% headwind to 2015 gross revenue, and only a ~3% headwind to net revenue. We believe this is a much smaller headwind that many investors expect.
Basically, UBS thinks that even if Apple changed the default, 50% of users would switch the default back to Google, so it wouldn't lose that many users. Because Google wouldn't have to make a big lump payment to Apple, on a net revenue basis, it might not be so bad.
That said, Safari on iOS devices is responsible for a significant proportion of the mobile browser market — 43%, according to UBS. If Apple doesn't renew the deal, and assuming a 50% switchback rate, this still translates to a potential loss of nearly 25% of the mobile search market for Google. As a company built on search, this would be a major failure.
So, what would Apple do instead of Google? It might replace Google Search with one of its competitors like Yahoo, or Microsoft's Bing, which is already used to power Siri. It could even build its own in-house tool, like it did with Apple Maps after ditching Google Maps in 2012. In 2014, Apple also added Duck Duck Go, a privacy-centric search engine, as an alternative choice for search in iOS. The move could be read as a signal to Google: We don't need you. We have options.
This isn't news in itself — a report from The Information's Amir Efrati that Apple might ditch Google came in November 2013. But UBS's new report puts a figure on just how much the move would hurt Google.
Something similar has happened before. Mozilla recently dropped Google Search as default from its Firefox browser in favour of a new deal with Yahoo. The result? Google's desktop search market share in the US dropped below 75% for the first time in years, while Yahoo saw significant growth.
Here's a chart:
This is just one problem facing Google. There is also the deceleration of desktop search as mobile usage continues to grow, the risks posed by regulatory action taken against the company (especially in Europe), and a shift toward so-called "native" display advertising at the expense of search advertising.
UBS may be "bullish" over Google stock, but there's a lot to be worried about in terms of the company's market share.
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NOW WATCH: Jeff Bezos Slams Silly Google Perks Like Massages
Kiev (AFP) - Ukraine's central bank has raised its benchmark refinancing rate to 30 percent from 19.5 percent, the country's Interfax news agency reported Tuesday.
The rate change will take effect on Wednesday, the bank's governor Valeriya Gontareva was quoted as saying.
Brussels (AFP) - The leaders of the west African countries worst hit by Ebola called for more aid to eradiate the disease and rebuild their shattered economies at an international conference in Brussels Tuesday.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma and Alpha Conde of Guinea urged the world to help their recovery as the number of new cases slows.
More than 9,700 people have died of the disease since the west African epidemic emerged in southern Guinea in December 2013, with nearly 24,000 people infected, according to the World Health Organization.
"The impact of Ebola on our economies has been profound. The most important long-term response to Ebola therefore rests in plans and strategies for economic recovery," Sirleaf told the EU-backed conference.
"There is no doubt this will require significant resources, even a Marshall Plan," she said, referring to the US-led aid plan that rebuilt Europe after World War II.
The International Monetary Fund in Washington approved on Monday funding and debt relief worth about $187 million for Sierra Leone for coming years, with $85 million of that to be disbursed immediately.
The charity Oxfam has previously made similar calls for a Marshall Plan-type effort to help stricken west Africa.
The countries at the centre of the Ebola epidemic are forecast to lose 12 percent of their combined gross domestic product this year, according to World Bank estimates.
In addition, their health sectors have been partially wiped out by the epidemic or forced to divert resources to fighting Ebola at the expense of other diseases like measles, malaria and AIDS.
- 'No complacency' -
The conference gathered the three African leaders plus more than 60 delegations including the European Union, China, the United States, Cuba and Australia, plus the United Nations, the World Bank and other international organisations.
The African leaders repeated a pledge made last month to eradicate the disease by mid-April.
"We must guard against complacency. There will not be total victory until we get to" zero cases, Koroma said. "We must be ever-ready to aggressively combat this oubtreak."
UN Ebola envoy David Nabarro said on Monday that the number of new cases had declined from around 900 a week to 100, but that cases appeared to be climbing back up in the coastal regions of Sierra Leone and Guinea.
"The purpose of this conference is getting to zero" in terms of human cases, an EU official involved in the talks said separately, but added: "The curve is flattening out, but definitely it is not at zero."
Officials pointed to the fact that Nigeria, Senegal and Mali have all managed to show that Ebola cases can be reduced to zero after they too were hit by the virus.
Countries around the world have so far pledged $4.9 billion to fight Ebola, with $2.4 billion disbursed until now, officials said.
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank will host a further conference in April in Washington to see if there are still financial gaps, followed by another called by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in May, Nabarro said.
Ebola, one of the deadliest pathogens known to man, is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person showing symptoms such as fever or vomiting.
The UK government has drawn up a shortlist of locations for a commercial spaceport for Europe. The Department of Transport (DfT) announced on Tuesday plans to deliver the country's first hub for public space travel "moved a step forward" after three months of consultations.
In the report, the government confirms "widespread support" for the project, which it says "paves the way towards making commercial spaceflight operations in the UK a reality." It wouldn't just be Britain's first, by the way, but Europe's too.
The report lists a number of locations for the site and notes that a coastal location is required. The shortlist was drawn up by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and is made up of Newquay in Cornwall, Campeltown, Glasgow Prestwick, and Stornoway in Scotland, and Llanbedr in Wales. Yes, there could soon be a European spaceport in Cornwall. Or Wales.
According to the consultation, criteria for an appropriate spot includes an existing civil or military aerodrome with a runway over 3,000m, space for "special use airspace," and that it is a suitable distance away from densely populated areas.
Last year, the government launched the Space Innovation and Growth Strategy after in 2012 establishing initial plans to actually build a spaceport in the UK. The DfT and CAA want to see "operational" spaceplanes in the UK as early as 2018. Talks over how to implement a working spaceport in the UK are ongoing, but this latest announcement demonstrates the government's desire to make it happen.
Respondents in the latest consultation includes some big names — and may point towards who might be more involved in the future. Alongside councils, airports, and environmental groups, there are the likes of Virgin Galactic and global space engineers HE Space.
Business Secretary Vince Cable said in the announcement today that a spaceport would be one of the country's biggest science achievements. He said he believes the industry could be worth as much as $400 billion to the global economy by 2030 and added tht the consultation results make the project a "very real ability in the near future."
Now, the DfT is going to develop a detailed technical specification of what a spaceport would actual need before opening up the stage for proposals to actually build a commercial hub for European space travel.
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NOW WATCH: Peter Diamandis: The first trillionaire is going to be made in space
Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, is where tech companies and mobile carriers come to show off their latest products and ogle what everyone else is making.
We have been exploring the conference, and here are some of the most bizarre things we have seen.
Madrid (AFP) - Two-time Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso will miss the opening race of the 2015 season in Australia after suffering concussion in a crash in testing on February 22, his Mclaren team confirmed on Tuesday.
"In order to limit those environmental risk factors, specifically, his doctors have advised that he should not compete in the imminent Australian Grand Prix meeting, which will take place on March 13th, 14th and 15th," McLaren said in a statement.
"Fernando has understood and accepted that advice, and the two McLaren-Honda cars will therefore be driven in Australia by Fernando's team-mate Jenson Button and the team's test and reserve driver Kevin Magnussen."
Amazon may be planning to launch its own wireless service to offer customers low-cost mobile internet.
This is the prediction made by Macquarie Research, and comes a day after Google announced its own long-rumoured wireless service.
Google's wireless service is what's known as a MVNO — a mobile virtual network operator. It doesn't own its own bandwidth or transmitter, but instead rents them from other carriers. Macquarie believes Amazon is now "likely to follow suit" with the MVNO model.
It'd be a "bullish" move for Amazon to make, the analyst note says, and it could come bundled with Prime to make Amazon's premium subscription service even more all-encompassing.
Amazon has made previous forays into the mobile sphere. It launched the Amazon Fire Phone in 2014 (but it was not particularly well-received). Back in 2012 it actually ran an MVNO in Japan, offering prepaid wireless service in the country. It also offers free downloads worldwide for Kindles, GigaOm pointed out at the time, meaning that it effectively operates a (unconventional) MVNO worldwide already.
In short, Amazon already has plenty of experience in mobile under its belt. And in January 2015, VentureBeat also reported that there's"chatter within the wireless industry about Amazon becoming a network operator."
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NOW WATCH: Here's How Much You Have To Buy To Make Amazon Prime Worth It
Two years after the colossal failure of the sci-fi thriller "After Earth," Will Smith returned to theaters this past weekend with the flashy con-artist love story "Focus," and though it was No. 1 at the box office, with an opening of $19.1 million, it was one of the lowest opening weekends ever for Smith.
Smith is certainly at a crossroads professionally.
Even before "After Earth," films like "Hancock" and "I, Robot" (before overseas sales raised their grosses) showed that if he didn't change things, the star who once owned July 4 weekend with "Independence Day"and "Men In Black" was setting himself up for a fall.
Though "Focus" proves Smith still has the charisma and eye for good scripts to be a viable draw, he isn't out of the woods just yet.
Here are five ways he can get out of this slump.
1. Do Less Sci-Fi
Yes, Smith became a megastar fighting evil aliens in "Independence Day" and the "Men in Black" franchise and by performing incredible feats in front of green screens, but now at 46 it’s time for him to pull back. There’s nothing worse than watching an old action hero, and though Smith keeps himself in great shape, what "Focus" proves is that he can still grab our attention without leaving the stratosphere.
2. Find a Big Name Director to Team with
Smith has worked with some big name directors (Michael Bay, Barry Sonnenfeld, Tony Scott, Michael Mann), but what would completely floor everyone is if Smith teamed with a director as iconic as him like Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, or Oliver Stone. For Smith, the best thing might be to pause from developing projects and give himself over to an auteur who can get him out of his comfort zone and just act.
3. Comedy is your Friend
If you scroll through Smith’s all-time top grossing films, you'll find his largest grossing comedy is 2005's "Hitch." Outside of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," it’s Smith’s best comedic work and, sadly, it’s the last time he’s done it. One of the reasons he’s a huge movie star is that regardless of the seriousness of the story, he can always throw in a joke and it will work. "Focus" gives us a bit of that Big Willie charm, but what he might need right now is to do a strong comedy.
4. Don’t be Scared of the Supporting Role
Yes, it sounds insane, but Smith can benefit from being in a great movie and not have top billing. In fact, he’s doing just that with his decision to take on the role of Deadshot in the adaptation of next summer's "Suicide Squad." Playing in an ensemble will not only get him into the comic book game without having the pressure of launching a stand-alone character on his own, but as a supporting (and doing it better than being a spiritual golf caddie like in "The Legend of Bagger Vance") it would build the excitement when he does show up on screen.
5. More Dramas
This has always been Smith’s Achilles heel. Though he hit the mark with "Ali," movies like "Seven Pounds" and "The Pursuit of Happyness" got him gun shy in taking dramatic chances. But he’s only gotten better since then. There are scenes in "Focus" that showcase his growth and prove that he has a strength playing serious and conflicted. The best example is a Super Bowl sequence in which *spoiler* Smith's character plays all of us as we watch his grift on a wealthy business tycoon by playing up a supposed gambling addiction. *spoiler* This may be the time for Smith to go after that Oscar again.
SEE ALSO: Jared Leto is undergoing a big transformation to play the Joker
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NOW WATCH: This Sports Illustrated swimsuit rookie could become the next Kate Upton
Business Insider's chief correspondent Nicholas Carlson reveals the three most surprising facts he learned about the "geek queen of Silicon Valley" while researching his book, "Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!"
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Kirkuk (Iraq) (AFP) - Iraqi forces closed in on Tikrit Tuesday, their progress slowed by jihadist snipers and booby traps, on the second day of Baghdad's largest operation yet against the Islamic State group.
The government has mobilised a 30,000-strong force for the push to retake Tikrit made up of Shiite militiamen and Sunni tribesmen as well as troops and police.
Outnumbered and outgunned, the jihadists who have held Tikrit since June 2014 have been resorting to guerrilla tactics to disrupt the government's three-pronged advance.
"They are using urban warfare and snipers, so we are advancing in a cautious and delicate way, and we need more time," a lieutenant general on the ground told AFP.
Iraqi forces are moving on Tikrit from three directions, with units targeting the towns of Al-Alam and Ad-Dawr to the north and south, while another large contingent drives on the city from the east.
"We are close to Ad-Dawr, but Daesh is still in the centre," the senior officer said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
The jihadist group announced in a radio bulletin Tuesday that a US national from its ranks had carried out a suicide attack against Iraqi forces near Samarra, the other main city in Salaheddin province.
The attacker was referred to by his nom de guerre, Abu Dawud al-Amriki, but the claim could not be immediately verified.
The operation, the government's largest since it started attempting to regain the ground it lost to jihadists last summer, was announced on Sunday by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
- No Mosul timeline -
Both Iraqi and Iranian media said Qassem Soleimani -- the commander of the Al-Quds Force covert operations unit of Tehran's elite Revolutionary Guards -- was in Salaheddin province to help coordinate operations.
The recapture of Tikrit is of both strategic and symbolic importance.
Located about 160 kilometres (100 miles) north of Baghdad, it is the hometown of former president Saddam Hussein, the remnants of whose Baath party have collaborated with IS.
Military commanders have said Tikrit is a stepping stone for an even more ambitious operation aimed at retaking Mosul, the large northern city which has been the main Iraq hub of IS.
Analysts said the battle for Tikrit, which the government has already attempted and failed to retake several times, would be a test of how effectively such diverse fighting units work together.
"The battle for Tikrit and other towns in Salaheddin province will provide a mini-preview of what awaits further to the north in Mosul," the Soufan Group intelligence consultancy said in a brief.
Tikrit and its surroundings are Sunni and some local tribes have been accused of involvement in the massacre of hundreds of new, mostly Shiite, recruits at a nearby base called Speicher in June.
Some leaders, including the powerful head of Iraq's Popular Mobilisation units Hadi al-Ameri, have explicitly said the Tikrit operation would be an opportunity to exact revenge.
The UN warned that operations "must be conducted with the utmost care to avoid civilian casualties, and with full respect for fundamental human rights principles and humanitarian law."
A senior US defence official had suggested last month that the Mosul offensive should begin in April or May, a move that irked Iraqi commanders who argued the timing was theirs to decide.
On Monday, US President Barack Obama's envoy for the fight against IS stressed there was no timeline.
"The point about Mosul, or the point about any aspect of the counter-offensive, is less about the timing than about the preparation," John Allen said.
Australia announced Tuesday it will send another 300 troops to Iraq in a joint mission with New Zealand to help prepare Iraqi forces for the fightback.
But Allen said that preparation was not just military but should also include measures to assist the affected population.
Tents have been set up in Samarra to shelter civilians fleeing Tikrit and joining what the International Organisation for Migration says are 2.5 million people already displaced in Iraq.
Paris (AFP) - People who drink three to five cups of coffee a day may have a lower risk of clogged arteries that can cause serious heart problems, a study said Tuesday.
The South Korean research is the latest on the health effects of the popular brew, previously associated with a reduced risk of developing multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's and Alzheimers disease.
For the latest study, the team analysed data from 25,100 South Korean men and women, average age 41, who had undergone regular health screening.
None of the study group had any cardiovascular problems, but one in seven had detectable levels of coronary artery calcium (CAC) -- an early sign of coronary heart disease, or atherosclerosis.
Atherosclerosis occurs when a waxy compound called plaque lines the artery walls, limiting blood flow and potentially triggering dangerous blood clots.
The level of CAC was highest among those who had less than one cup or more than five cups daily, the researchers found. It was lowest among those who drank between three to five cups.
Cup size was not specified in the report.
The researchers said the result was the same for all population sub-groups, regardless of age, gender, smoking status, body fat, alcohol consumption or blood pressure levels.
"Moderate coffee consumption was associated with a lower prevalence of subclinical atherosclerosis," said the study published in the journal Heart.
Further work is needed to explain why coffee appears to be protective, and whether the findings would hold true for other population groups.
The researchers cautioned that "our results were based on a sample of relatively healthy, young middle-aged, educated Koreans, and might not be generalisable to other populations."
Previous research has thrown up a mixed picture about coffee and its impact on health.
A 2014 analysis of 36 studies found that moderate coffee intake -- also defined as three to five cups a day -- was linked to a decreased risk of heart disease.
Other research had said it lowered the risk of Type 2 diabetes.
But coffee consumption has also been linked to higher cholesterol and blood pressure, both of which are bad news for cardiac health.
Here is what you need to know.
Russia and Ukraine have a temporary gas deal in place. The overnight agreement will supply Ukraine with gas for the month of March. "Under the deal sealed in Brussels, Ukraine's Naftogaz will pre-pay and order sufficient quantities of gas to ensure all domestic consumption for March and guarantee undisrupted supplies to the EU," the AP's Lorne Cook notes. Russia's ruble is stronger by 0.5% at 62.23, and Ukraine's hryvnia is up 8.5 % at 24.25.
German retail sales surged. Tuesday's 2.9% month-over-month jump in sales was the best gain in seven years. The strong number is being attributed to ultra-low interest rates and the recent decline in oil prices. The euro is down 0.2% at $1.1160 and nearing a 12-year low.
Spanish unemployment is improving. The number of unemployed fell by 13,500 (an increase of 10,500 was forecast) as hiring in the construction sector surged. The Spanish economy added 10,091 construction jobs, while the service sector gained 223 jobs. There are still 4.51 million people out of work.
Britain's Construction PMI hit a 4-month high. The number rose to 60.1 from 59.1 on expectations of a downtick to 59.0. Anything above 50 signals growth, so this is good news. Britain's pound is flat at 1.5370.
Stock markets around the globe trade lower. China's Shanghai Composite (down 2.2%) led the way lower in Asia, while Spain's IBEX (down 0.3%) paces the decline in Europe. US futures are only modestly lower, with Dow futures down by 15 points. The US 10-year yield is higher by 2 basis points at 2.10%.
US economic data is light. Auto sales will be released throughout the day. Analysts are looking for a slight uptick to 16.8 million from last month's 16.7 million.
Australia's central bank kept rates on hold. The Reserve Bank of Australia surprised by keeping its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 2.25% as many expected a cut of 25 basis points. However, the statement indicated: "Further easing may be appropriate over the period ahead, in order to foster sustainable growth in demand and inflation consistent with the target." The Australian dollar is up 0.5% at .7805.
Japan held a weak bond auction. The disappointing 10-year bond auction drew bids of 40 basis points, up 9 basis points from the previous total. Investor demand was strong with ¥2.8 chasing every ¥1 of paper. Post-auction action has the 10-year yield higher by 3 basis points at 37 basis points.
Caesars Entertainment posted a huge loss.The troubled gaming company lost $7.00 per share, bleeding $1.01 billion in the fourth quarter. The loss for 2014 amounted to $2.77 billion. Its casinos lost $60 million in table games during the quarter.
Sharp needs cash. The electronics maker tumbled nearly 10% on news it was seeking a debt-for-equity swap totaling 150 billion yen ($1.24 billion).
About a week after Pebble unveiled its new smartwatch, the Pebble Time, the company is already announcing another new addition to the Pebble line — the Pebble Time Steel.
The Pebble Time Steel, which will retail for $300 when it launches and is priced at $250 for Kickstarter backers, comes with the same software improvements as the Pebble Time. This means it uses the same Timeline user interface that shows you relevant notifications such as calendar alerts, sports scores, and more. It'll have the same color e-paper display as the Pebble Time, too, and also comes with a built-in microphone.
Where the two watches differ, however, is in their design. The Pebble Steel Time, as its name implies, features a stainless steel-encased watchface that's coated with Gorilla Glass. It also comes with two straps: leather and stainless steel, and will be available in silver, black, and gold finishes.
One model even looks a little bit like the Apple Watch:
But there are two things that really make the Pebble Steel Time stand out: the company claims it can last for 10 days on a single charge, and it's allowing accessory makers to create their own "smartstraps" for the watch. This means that third party strap makers can create wristbands that add new features to the watch.
One "smartstrap," for instance, may come with a GPS chip or a heart rate monitor built-in. It's a cool concept that we haven't really seen other wearable devices try just yet.
The company didn't mention an exact release date, but did say that you'll be able to back the watch on Kickstarter until March 27. If you already backed the regular Pebble Time, you can upgrade to the Steel model without losing your spot in line too.
When the original Pebble launched in 2012, it quickly became the most popular smartwatch. At the time, it was the most-funded project on Kickstarter with $10 million raised, and the company sold one million watches over the course of two years.
The Pebble's success is an indicator that there is some interest for a smartwatch that's actually useful and affordable. But the competition is about to get a lot tougher as Apple is preparing to release its new smartwatch in April, which we'll hear more about on March 9.
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NOW WATCH: 14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do
