Wall Street ticks lower on "fiscal cliff" stalemate

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged slightly lower on Thursday as investors fretted that a deal on the U.S. budget wouldn't come as soon as they had hoped after President Barack Obama threatened to veto a controversial Republican plan.

The market barely reacted to a round of strong data, including on gross domestic product growth and housing, suggesting talks to avert the "fiscal cliff," steep tax hikes and spending cuts due to take effect in 2013, remain the primary focus for markets.

Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner said Wednesday his chamber would pass a proposal that spares many wealthy Americans from tax hikes needed to balance the budget. Obama has threatened to veto the plan if it passes, while some Republicans oppose any deal featuring tax increases.

"The closer we get to the end of the year without a deal, the more optimism is going to evaporate," said Todd Schoenberger, managing partner at LandColt Capital in New York. "Volatility is going to be extreme until there's a deal, and the probability of being caught on the downside is much greater than being on the upside."

While investors have hoped for an agreement soon between policy makers over the fiscal cliff, this seems unlikely as wrangling continues over the details.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 18.74 points, or 0.14 percent, at 13,233.23. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 0.84 points, or 0.06 percent, at 1,434.97. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 4.18 points, or 0.14 percent, at 3,040.18.

NYSE Euronext was the S&P 500's top percentage gainer, surging 35 percent to $32.56 after IntercontinentalExchange Inc said it would buy the operator of the New York Stock Exchange for $8.2 billion. ICE shares rose 1.3 percent to $130.06.

Stocks rallied earlier in the week on signs of progress in the negotiations, led by banking and energy shares, which tend to outperform in times of economic expansion. On signs of complications, however, many have turned to hedging their bets through options and exchange-traded funds.

The U.S. economy grew 3.1 percent in the third quarter, faster than previously estimated, while the number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits rose more than expected in the latest week.

"It is great to see this kind of growth, but investors know it could all disappear if there's no deal on the cliff," Schoenberger said. "Macro data may be on the back burner for a while."

Existing home sales jumped 5.9 percent in November, more than expected, and by the fastest monthly place in three years. And the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's December index of business conditions in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region rose to 8.1 from -10.7 in November. Analysts were looking for a read of -3.

Google Inc agreed to sell set-top TV box maker Motorola Home to Arris Group Inc for $2.35 billion in cash and stock. Arris rose 6.6 percent to $15.51 while Google was little changed.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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Aleppo Residents, Battered by War, Struggle to Survive

The Fight for Aleppo:
In Syria’s largest city, a sustained and pitched battle between rebels and the Syrian army has left the city in ruins.

ALEPPO, Syria — Inside the classrooms where they once studied, the boys darted like a pack. Their banging and clanking could be heard for a city block.

The playground outside had been hit by a Syrian Air Force airstrike, which fractured the school’s walls. Now the children were smashing the furniture, prying off wooden desktops and bench seats, rushing away with what they could.

The Isam al-Nadri School for Boys was being dismantled for the firewood it contained. One sixth grader, Ahmed, clutching the kindling he had made by ransacking a room, offered an irreducible argument for looting his own school. “I want heat,” he said.

Winter is descending on Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and the bloodied stage for an urban battle, now running into its sixth month, between rebels and the military of President Bashar al-Assad.

As temperatures drop and the weakened government’s artillery thunders on, Aleppo is administered by no one and slipping into disaster. Front-line neighborhoods are rubble. Most of the city’s districts have had no electricity and little water for weeks. All of Aleppo suffers from shortages of oil, food, medicine, doctors and gas.

Diseases are spreading. Parks and courtyards are being defoliated for firewood, turning streets once lined with trees into avenues bordered by stumps. Months’ worth of trash is piled high, often beside bread lines where hundreds of people wait for a meager stack of loaves.

One of the Middle East’s beautiful and historic cities is being forced by scarcity and violence into a bitter new shape. Overlaying it all is a mix of fatigue and distrust, the sentiments of a population divided in multiple ways.

Aleppo’s citizens scavenge and seethe. And along with the sectarian passions of civil war, some residents express yearnings for starkly opposite visions of the future: either for a return of the relative stability of the Assad government or for the promises of Islamic rule.

Others see a grim hope, calling the tearing apart of their society a period that one day will be remembered as this ancient city’s ultimate test.

“We left high salaries, we left our jobs, we left our rank in society,” said Dr. Ammar Diar Bakerly, who directs medical care in the city’s rebel-held east. “We left everything to get our dignity. This is the price we have to pay, and it is a cheap price to get our freedom from the tyrant.”

Not everyone shares these revolutionary views. “We come every morning to the clinic asking for medicine, but they don’t offer any,” said Johair Iman Mustafa, a house painter and taxi driver with no work, who spotted a visitor and approached in a rage. “We go to the bakery for hours, but there is no bread and they kick us.”

“Before the revolution,” said Mr. Mustafa, a Sunni who had been no supporter of Mr. Assad’s Alawite-led government, “it was much better.”

Supplies Dwindle, Prices Rise

For most of Syria’s 21-month uprising, Aleppo, a commercial and government center built around its historic Old City, was spared the battles engulfing the country.

That changed in July when the Free Syrian Army, or F.S.A., as many rebels call themselves, entered Aleppo and opened urban fronts.

The government rushed in much-needed army units from elsewhere, turning to heavier weapons in a bid to retain control of a city that, if lost, would change Mr. Assad’s self-assured narrative. The war’s largest battle yet was joined.

Five months on, the government’s gambit has failed. Even with air support and artillery batteries firing relentlessly, Mr. Assad’s military has yielded ground. In roughly half the city, rebels move about openly.

From the outset, Aleppo’s population, its loyalties split, was stuck between forces. Disorganized rebel groups had started a battle they had little prospect to win swiftly. The army fought back in part with a collective-punishment model. Foreign fighters began to trickle in, stalking the front and talking of jihad.

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Facebook CEO Zuckerberg donating $500M in stock

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he is donating nearly $ 500 million in stock to a Silicon Valley charity with the aim of funding health and education issues.

Zuckerberg donated 18 million Facebook shares, valued at $ 498.8 million based on their Tuesday closing price. The beneficiary is the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a nonprofit that works with donors to allocate their gifts.

This is Zuckerberg’s largest donation to date. He pledged $ 100 million in Facebook stock to Newark, N.J., public schools in 2010, before his company went public earlier this year. Later in 2010, he joined Giving Pledge, an effort led by Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. CEO Warren Buffett to get the country’s richest people to donate most of their wealth. His wife, Priscilla Chan, joined with him.

In a Facebook post Tuesday, Zuckerberg, 28, said he’s “proud of the work” done by the foundation that his Newark donation launched, called Startup: Education, which has helped open charter schools, high schools and others.

With the latest contribution, he added, “we will look for areas in education and health to focus on next.” He did not give further details on what plans there may be for funds.

“Mark’s generous gift will change lives and inspire others in Silicon Valley and around the globe to give back and make the world a better place,” said Emmett D. Carson, CEO of the foundation.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Little Big Town, LeAnn Rimes to Duet with X Factor Finalists

TV Watch

The X Factor

By Andrea Billups

12/19/2012 at 10:40 AM EST

from left: Fifth Harmony, Tate Stevens and Carly Rose Sonenclar

Ray Mickshaw/FOX

It's down to the wire for this season's The X Factor as teen sensation Carly Rose Sonenclar, country crooner Tate Stevens and girl group Fifth Harmony are set to square off in the finals this week doing duets.

Sonenclar, 13, is partnered with LeAnn Rimes; Stevens, 37, will shared the stage with the group Little Big Town; and Fifth Harmony will pair up with judge Demi Lovato as anticipation builds for a winner.

At a press conference Monday, The X Factor's creator Simon Cowell praised the finalists and predicted that anything can happen as the show prepares to wrap its season Thursday night on Fox.

"This one here on my left [Carly Rose], I still don't believe she's human. The girls are a viable pop group now that could work in the same way as One Direction, and with Tate ... why he didn't get a record deal 20 years ago is ridiculous," Cowell said of the final three. "They're super, super talented and that's what it's all about. One of the best finals I've ever been involved in."

While L.A. Reid is leaving the show, Britney Spears gave no indication if she's returning next season. But the singer offered high praise for this year's final three.

"The whole experience has just opened me up to so many different things and just how many gifted people there are out there," Spears said.

Lovato says she likes the finalists so much, "I would collaborate literally with any of the contestants on this panel right now."

• Reporting by PATRICK GOMEZ

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Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma

WASHINGTON (AP) — They might not want to talk about the gunshots or the screams. But their toys might start getting into imaginary shootouts.

Last week's school shooting in Connecticut raises the question: What will be the psychological fallout for the children who survived?

For people of any age, regaining a sense of security after surviving violence can take a long time. They're at risk for lingering anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder.

But after the grief and fear fades, psychiatrists say most of Newtown's young survivors probably will cope without long-term emotional problems.

"Kids do tend to be highly resilient," said Dr. Matthew Biel, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.

And one way that younger children try to make sense of trauma is through play. Youngsters may pull out action figures or stuffed animals and re-enact what they witnessed, perhaps multiple times.

"That's the way they gain mastery over a situation that's overwhelming," Biel explained, saying it becomes a concern only if the child is clearly distressed while playing.

Nor is it unusual for children to chase each other playing cops-and-robbers, but now parents might see some also pretending they're dead, added Dr. Melissa Brymer of the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.

Among the challenges will be spotting which children are struggling enough that they may need professional help.

Newtown's tragedy is particularly heart-wrenching because of what such young children grappled with — like the six first-graders who apparently had to run past their teacher's body to escape to safety.

There's little scientific research specifically on PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, in children exposed to a burst of violence, and even less to tell if a younger child will have a harder time healing than an older one.

Overall, scientists say studies of natural disasters and wars suggest most children eventually recover from traumatic experiences while a smaller proportion develop long-term disorders such as PTSD. Brymer says in her studies of school shootings, that fraction can range from 10 percent to a quarter of survivors, depending on what they actually experienced. A broader 2007 study found 13 percent of U.S. children exposed to different types of trauma reported some symptoms of PTSD, although less than 1 percent had enough for an official diagnosis.

Violence isn't all that rare in childhood. In many parts of the world — and in inner-city neighborhoods in the U.S., too — children witness it repeatedly. They don't become inured to it, Biel said, and more exposure means a greater chance of lasting psychological harm.

In Newtown, most at risk for longer-term problems are those who saw someone killed, said Dr. Carol North of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who has researched survivors of mass shootings.

Friday's shootings were mostly in two classrooms of Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has about 450 students through fourth-grade.

But those who weren't as close to the danger may be at extra risk, too, if this wasn't their first trauma or they already had problems such as anxiety disorders that increase their vulnerability, she said.

Right after a traumatic event, it's normal to have nightmares or trouble sleeping, to stick close to loved ones, and to be nervous or moody, Biel said.

To help, parents will have to follow their child's lead. Grilling a child about a traumatic experience isn't good, he stressed. Some children will ask a lot of questions, seeking reassurance, he said. Others will be quiet, thinking about the experience and maybe drawing or writing about it, or acting it out at playtime. Younger children may regress, becoming clingy or having tantrums.

Before second grade, their brains also are at a developmental stage some refer to as magical thinking, when it's difficult to distinguish reality and fantasy. Parents may have to help them understand that a friend who died isn't in pain or lonely but also isn't coming back, Brymer said.

When problem behaviors or signs of distress continue for several weeks, Brymer says it's time for an evaluation by a counselor or pediatrician.

Besides a supportive family, what helps? North advises getting children back into routines, together with their friends, and easing them back into a school setting. Studies of survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found "the power of the support of the people who went through it with you is huge," she said.

Children as young as first-graders can benefit from cognitive-behavioral therapy, Georgetown's Biel said. They can calm themselves with breathing techniques. They also can learn to identify and label their feelings — anger, frustration, worry — and how to balance, say, a worried thought with a brave one.

Finally, avoid watching TV coverage of the shooting, as children may think it's happening all over again, Biel added. He found that children who watched the 9/11 clips of planes hitting the World Trade Center thought they were seeing dozens of separate attacks.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.

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Wall Street steadies after two-day rally; Oracle gains

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Wednesday as investors found scant reason to continue buying following the best two-day rally for the S&P in a month.

The Nasdaq notched slight gains, helped by technology shares following strong results at Oracle Corp .

The S&P added 2.3 percent over the past two sessions, the first time it has notched two straight days of 1 percent gains since late July. The advance came as the latest offers in ongoing U.S. budget negotiations supported hopes for a deal.

President Barack Obama's most recent offer to Republicans in the ongoing fiscal talks made concessions on taxes and social programs spending, amid concerns from Senate Democrats. House Speaker John Boehner said he remained hopeful about an agreement, though the offer was "not there yet."

"We're starting to see signs that there will be a deal on the 'fiscal cliff,' but after two strong days and with a fair amount of uncertainty left, people are just taking money off the table," said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Tech shares <.gspt> were the top gainers of the day after Oracle reported earnings that beat expectations on strong software sales growth. Shares of Oracle rose 3.7 percent to $34.08, making it the biggest percentage gainer on the S&P 500.

FedEx Corp reported second-quarter revenue that beat expectations, but said earnings had been impacted by Superstorm Sandy. Shares rose 2.3 percent to $94.44.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 2.60 points, or 0.02 percent, to 13,353.56. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> dropped 0.52 points, or 0.04 percent, to 1,446.27. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> gained 3.08 points, or 0.10 percent, to 3,057.61.

Equities have had difficulty maintaining strong gains amid concerns over the "fiscal cliff," a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts many fear could push the economy into recession if they take effect next year.

Markets have been buoyed in recent weeks by any indication that an agreement between policy makers over the budget may be reached, with banks and energy shares - groups that outperform during periods of economic expansion - leading gains.

Still, trading has been light ahead of the holidays, and with investors' focus on the budget talks.

Knight Capital Group Inc climbed 6.3 percent to $3.54 after it agreed to be bought by Getco Holdings in a deal valued at $1.4 billion. The stock, which nearly collapsed after a trading error in August, remains down about 76 percent so far this year.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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Ancient Bones That Tell a Story of Compassion

Lorna Tilley

DISABLED Almost all the other skeletons at the Man Bac site, south of Hanoi, are straight. But the man now called Burial 9 was laid to rest curled in a fetal position that suggests lifelong paralysis.

While it is a painful truism that brutality and violence are at least as old as humanity, so, it seems, is caring for the sick and disabled.

And some archaeologists are suggesting a closer, more systematic look at how prehistoric people — who may have left only their bones — treated illness, injury and incapacitation. Call it the archaeology of health care.

The case that led Lorna Tilley and Marc Oxenham of Australian National University in Canberra to this idea is that of a profoundly ill young man who lived 4,000 years ago in what is now northern Vietnam and was buried, as were others in his culture, at a site known as Man Bac.

Almost all the other skeletons at the site, south of Hanoi and about 15 miles from the coast, lie straight. Burial 9, as both the remains and the once living person are known, was laid to rest curled in the fetal position. When Ms. Tilley, a graduate student in archaeology, and Dr. Oxenham, a professor, excavated and examined the skeleton in 2007 it became clear why. His fused vertebrae, weak bones and other evidence suggested that he lies in death as he did in life, bent and crippled by disease.

They gathered that he became paralyzed from the waist down before adolescence, the result of a congenital disease known as Klippel-Feil syndrome. He had little, if any, use of his arms and could not have fed himself or kept himself clean. But he lived another 10 years or so.

They concluded that the people around him who had no metal and lived by fishing, hunting and raising barely domesticated pigs, took the time and care to tend to his every need.

“There’s an emotional experience in excavating any human being, a feeling of awe,” Ms. Tilley said, and a responsibility “to tell the story with as much accuracy and humanity as we can.”

This case, and other similar, if less extreme examples of illness and disability, have prompted Ms. Tilley and Dr. Oxenham to ask what the dimensions of such a story are, what care for the sick and injured says about the culture that provided it.

The archaeologists described the extent of Burial 9’s disability in a paper in Anthropological Science in 2009. Two years later, they returned to the case to address the issue of health care head on. “The provision and receipt of health care may therefore reflect some of the most fundamental aspects of a culture,” the two archaeologists wrote in The International Journal of Paleopathology.

And earlier this year, in proposing what she calls a “bioarchaeology of care,” Ms. Tilley wrote that this field of study “has the potential to provide important — and possibly unique — insights into the lives of those under study.” In the case of Burial 9, she says, not only does his care indicate tolerance and cooperation in his culture, but suggests that he himself had a sense of his own worth and a strong will to live. Without that, she says, he could not have stayed alive.

“I’m obviously not the first archaeologist” to notice evidence of people who needed help to survive in stone age or other early cultures, she said. Nor does her method “come out of the blue.” It is based on and extends previous work.

Among archaeological finds, she said, she knows “about 30 cases in which the disease or pathology was so severe, they must have had care in order to survive.” And she said there are certainly more such cases to be described. “I am totally confident that there are almost any number of case studies where direct support or accommodation was necessary.”

Such cases include at least one Neanderthal, Shanidar 1, from a site in Iraq, dating to 45,000 years ago, who died around age 50 with one arm amputated, loss of vision in one eye and other injuries. Another is Windover boy from about 7,500 years ago, found in Florida, who had a severe congenital spinal malformation known as spina bifida, and lived to around age 15. D. N. Dickel and G. H. Doran, from Florida State University wrote the original paper on the case in 1989, and they concluded that contrary to popular stereotypes of prehistoric people, “under some conditions life 7,500 years ago included an ability and willingness to help and sustain the chronically ill and handicapped.”

In another well-known case, the skeleton of a teenage boy, Romito 2, found at a site in Italy in the 1980s, and dating to 10,000 years ago, showed a form of severe dwarfism that left the boy with very short arms. His people were nomadic and they lived by hunting and gathering. He didn’t need nursing care, but the group would have had to accept that he couldn’t run at the same pace or participate in hunting in the same way others did.

Ms. Tilley gained her undergraduate degree in psychology in 1982 and worked in the health care industry studying treatment outcomes before coming to the study of archaeology. She said her experience influenced her interest in ancient health care.

What she proposes, in papers with Dr. Oxenham and in a dissertation in progress, is a standard four-stage method for studying ancient remains of disabled or ill individuals with an eye to understanding their societies. She sets up several stages of investigation: first, establishing what was wrong with a person; second, describing the impact of the illness or disability given the way of life followed in that culture; and third, concluding what level of care would have needed.

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Miley Cyrus Keeps Warm with Liam Hemsworth on Film Set

12/18/2012 at 10:10 AM EST

Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth

Gilbert Carrasquillo/Splash News Online

The warmth of love kept Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth happy on a cold night Monday in Philadelphia, as she flew in from Los Angeles to visit her fiancé on the set of the upcoming thriller Paranoia.

Cyrus, 20, was sporting a green overcoat with a fur collar and a black cap pulled over her blonde pixie cut.

The pop star and her Australian actor beau, 22, who looked dapper in a dark suit, took some photos with fans before strolling off together.

Cyrus arrived in Philly from L.A., where she performed at the VH1 Divas concert on Sunday evening. – Tim Nudd

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Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence

NEW YORK (AP) — While an official has said that the 20-year-old gunman in the Connecticut school shooting had Asperger's syndrome, experts say there is no connection between the disorder and violence.

Asperger's is a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness.

"There really is no clear association between Asperger's and violent behavior," said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Little is known about Adam Lanza, identified by police as the shooter in the Friday massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. He fatally shot his mother before going to the school and killing 20 young children, six adults and himself, authorities said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's.

High school classmates and others have described him as bright but painfully shy, anxious and a loner. Those kinds of symptoms are consistent with Asperger's, said psychologist Eric Butter of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who treats autism, including Asperger's, but has no knowledge of Lanza's case.

Research suggests people with autism do have a higher rate of aggressive behavior — outbursts, shoving or pushing or angry shouting — than the general population, he said.

"But we are not talking about the kind of planned and intentional type of violence we have seen at Newtown," he said in an email.

"These types of tragedies have occurred at the hands of individuals with many different types of personalities and psychological profiles," he added.

Autism is a developmental disorder that can range from mild to severe. Asperger's generally is thought of as a mild form. Both autism and Asperger's can be characterized by poor social skills, repetitive behavior or interests and problems communicating. Unlike classic autism, Asperger's does not typically involve delays in mental development or speech.

Experts say those with autism and related disorders are sometimes diagnosed with other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"I think it's far more likely that what happened may have more to do with some other kind of mental health condition like depression or anxiety rather than Asperger's," Laugeson said.

She said those with Asperger's tend to focus on rules and be very law-abiding.

"There's something more to this," she said. "We just don't know what that is yet."

After much debate, the term Asperger's is being dropped from the diagnostic manual used by the nation's psychiatrists. In changes approved earlier this month, Asperger's will be incorporated under the umbrella term "autism spectrum disorder" for all the ranges of autism.

__

AP Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.

___

Online:

Asperger's information: http://1.usa.gov/3tGSp5

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Wall Street edges up on hopes "fiscal cliff" deal nearer

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose modestly on Tuesday as investors speculated negotiations between Democrats and Republicans would lead to a deal to avert the "fiscal cliff."

The market's gains followed a steep rally in the previous session, which lifted the S&P 500 to its highest in nearly two months.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner said he has hope for a broader deal on the budget talks and was still talking with President Barack Obama on the matter.

Obama made a counter-offer to Republicans on Monday night that included a major change in position on tax hikes for the wealthy, according to a source familiar with the talks.

The report followed a meeting between Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner, who has edged closer to Obama's position by proposing higher taxes on those who earn $1 million or more and extending lower tax rates for everyone else.

"We've been getting a series of snippets suggesting accommodation from both Boehner and Obama, which is feeding the sense in markets that we could get a deal," said Michael Holland, chairman of Holland & Co in New York.

Investors have been reluctant to make big bets in the face of uncertainty over the fiscal cliff, a combination of steep tax hikes and spending cuts that many fear could push the economy into recession if they take effect next year.

"You can never discount the possibility that the government will do something dumb and screw this up, but right now the market is happy over the prospects for a deal," said Holland, who oversees $4 billion in assets.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 17.27 points, or 0.13 percent, at 13,252.66. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 3.69 points, or 0.26 percent, at 1,434.05. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 15.28 points, or 0.51 percent, at 3,025.88.

Tech shares were among the strongest of the day, and gains in large-cap technology shares lifted the Nasdaq. Seagate Tech rose 3.4 percent to $29.01 while F5 Networks Inc rose 2.4 percent to $94.84.

The New York Times said that Wal-Mart Stores Inc's Mexican affiliate routinely used bribes to open stores in desirable locations. The story cited 19 instances of the retail giant paying off local officials. In a statement Monday night, Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar said the company was looking into the allegations. Shares of Wal-Mart, a Dow component, fell 0.4 percent to $68.94.

Arbitron Inc surged 23 percent to $46.87 after Nielsen Holdings NV agreed to buy the media and marketing research firm in a deal worth $1.26 billion. Nielsen rose 1.3 percent to $30.

Baker Hughes Inc said third-quarter margins and revenue would be below its expectations because of lower land drilling activity and price erosion. Shares rose 2.6 percent to $41.73, reversing a decline in the premarket session.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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