Google emerges from FTC probe relatively unscathed

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google has settled a U.S. government probe into its business practices without making any major concessions on how the company runs its Internet search engine, the world’s most influential gateway to digital information and commerce.

Thursday’s agreement with the Federal Trade Commission covers only some of the issues raised in a wide-ranging antitrust investigation that could have culminated in a regulatory crackdown that re-shapes Internet search, advertising and mobile computing.

But the FTC didn’t find any reason to impose radical changes, to the relief of Google and technology trade groups worried about overzealous regulation discouraging future innovation. The resolution disappointed consumer rights groups and Google rivals such as Microsoft Corp., which had lodged complaints with regulators in hopes of legal action that would split up or at least hobble the Internet’s most powerful company.

Google is still trying to settle a similar antitrust probe in Europe. A resolution to that case is expected to come within the next few weeks.

After a 19-month investigation, Google Inc. placated the FTC by agreeing to a consent decree that will require the company to charge “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” prices to license hundreds of patents deemed essential to the operations of mobile phones, tablet computers, laptops and video game players.

The requirement is meant to ensure that Google doesn’t use patents acquired in last year’s $ 12.4 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility to thwart competition from mobile devices running on software other than Google‘s Android system. The products vying against Android include Apple Inc.’s iPhone and iPad, Research in Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry and Microsoft‘s Windows software.

Google also promised to exclude, upon request, snippets copied from other websites in capsules of key information shown in response to search requests. The company had insisted the practice is legal under the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Nonetheless, even before the settlement, Google already had scaled back on the amount of cribbing, or “scraping,” of online content after business review site Yelp Inc. lodged one of the complaints that triggered the FTC investigation in 2011.

In another concession, Google pledged to adjust the online advertising system that generates most of its revenue so marketing campaigns can be more easily managed on rival networks.

Google, though, prevailed in the pivotal part of the investigation, which delved into complaints that the Internet search leader has been highlighting its own services on its influential results page while burying links to competing sites. For instance, requests for directions may turn up Google Maps first, queries for video might point to the company’s own site, YouTube, and searches for merchandise might route users to Google Shopping.

Although the FTC said it uncovered some obvious instances of bias in Google‘s results during the investigation, the agency’s five commissioners unanimously concluded there wasn’t enough evidence to take legal action.

“Undoubtedly, Google took aggressive actions to gain advantage over rival search providers,” said Beth Wilkinson, a former federal prosecutor that the FTC hired to help steer the investigation. “However, the FTC’s mission is to protect competition, and not individual competitors.”

Two consumer rights groups lashed out at the FTC for letting Google off too easily.

“The FTC had a long list of grievances against Google to choose from when deciding if they unfairly used their dominance to crush their competitors, yet they failed to use their authority for the betterment of the marketplace,” said Steve Pociask, president of the American Consumer Institute.

John Simpson of frequent Google critic Consumer Watchdog asserted: “The FTC rolled over for Google.”

David Wales, who was the FTC’s antitrust enforcement chief in 2008 and early 2009, said the agency had to balance its desire to prevent a powerful company from trampling the competition against the difficulty of proving wrongdoing in a rapidly changing Internet search market.

“This is a product of the FTC wanting to push the envelope of antitrust enforcement without risking the danger of losing a case in in court,” said Wales, who wasn’t involved with the case and is now a partner at the law firm Jones Day.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said the outcome “is good for consumers, it is good for competition, it is good for innovation and it is the right thing to do.” Before reaching its conclusion, the FTC reviewed more than 9 million pages of documents submitted by Google and its rivals and grilled top Internet industry executives during sworn depositions.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association, a technology trade group, applauded the FTC for its handling of the high-profile case.

“This was a prudent decision by the FTC that shows that antitrust enforcement, in the hands of responsible regulators, is sufficiently adaptable to the realities of the Internet age,” said Ed Black, the group’s president.

The FTC has previously been criticized for not doing more to curb Google‘s power. Most notably, the FTC signed off on Google‘s $ 3.2 billion purchase of online advertising service DoubleClick in 2008 and its $ 681 million acquisition of mobile ad service AdMob in 2010. Google critics contend those deals gave the company too much control over the pricing of digital ads, which account for the bulk of Google‘s revenue.

If Google breaks any part of the agreement, Leibowitz said the FTC can fine the company up to $ 16,000 per violation. Last year, the FTC determined that Google broke an agreement governing Internet privacy, resulting in a $ 22.5 million fine, though the company didn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing.

Google‘s ability to protect its search recipe from government-imposed changes represents a major victory for a company that has always tried to portray itself as force for good. The Mountain View, Calif., company has portrayed its dominant search engine as a free service that is constantly tweaking its formula so that people get the information they desire more quickly and concisely.

“The conclusion is clear: Google‘s services are good for users and good for competition,” David Drummond, Google‘s top lawyer, wrote in a Thursday blog post.

Google‘s tactics also have been extremely lucrative. Although Google has branched into smartphones and many other fields since its founding in a Silicon Valley garage in 1998, Internet search and advertising remains its financial backbone. The intertwined services still generate more than 90 percent of Google‘s revenue, which now exceeds $ 50 billion annually.

Throughout the FTC investigation, Google executives also sought to debunk the notion that the company’s recommendations are the final word on the Internet. They pointed out that consumers easily could go to Microsoft‘s Bing, Yahoo or other services to search for information. “Competition is just a click away,” became as much of a Google mantra as the company’s official motto: “Don’t be evil.”

Microsoft cast the FTC’s investigation as a missed opportunity.

“The FTC’s overall resolution of this matter is weak and — frankly —unusual,” Dave Heiner, Microsoft‘s deputy general counsel, wrote on the company’s blog. “We are concerned that the FTC may not have obtained adequate relief even on the few subjects that Google has agreed to address.”

FairSearch, a group whose membership includes Microsoft, called the FTC’s settlement “disappointing and premature,” given that European regulators might be able to force Google to make more extensive changes.

“The FTC’s inaction on the core question of search bias will only embolden Google to act more aggressively to misuse its monopoly power to harm other innovators,” FairSearch asserted.

Yelp also criticized the FTC’s handling of the case, calling “it a missed opportunity to protect innovation in the Internet economy, and the consumers and businesses that rely upon it.”

Investors had already been anticipating Google would emerge from the inquiry relatively unscathed.

Google‘s stock rose 42 cents Thursday to close at $ 723.67. Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Wash., shed 37 cents, or 1.3 percent, to finish at $ 27.25.

In a research note Thursday, Macquarie Securities analyst Benjamin Schachter described the settlement as “the best possible outcome” for Google. “We believe that the terms of the agreement will have very limited negative financial or strategic implications for the company.” Schachter wrote.

___

AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this story.

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Celebrities Who Had Babies Before Marriage

Kim Kardashian and Jessica Simpson are just some of the stars bucking tradition and having children before they say "I do."

Video- Kim K. Exclusive: Pregnancy is Hard

Tomorrow on ET, we break down the celebrity couples who set to welcome their bundles of joy prior to making it official with their main squeeze.

Also Friday, the world's thinnest woman shares her heartbreaking story.

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Conservatives gone wild

John Podhoretz

The most passionately anti-Obama Republican politicians and activists consider themselves the truest and purest of conservatives, and often unleash their scorn and fury on others who also call themselves conservative but differ on strategy and tactics.

But in the realm of philosophy, “conservatism” from Thomas Hobbes onward is a worldview dedicated to order and tradition and the proposition that disorder is dangerous and deadly.

Thus, it is the opposite of “conservative” to embrace chaos instead of order. It is the opposite of “conservative” to embrace crisis rather than accept unpleasant realities.

Getty Images

Who’d want his job? John Boehner has an emotional moment after being re-elected as House speaker yesteday.

And yet, over the past week, that is exactly what many conservatives have done. They have violated fundamental conservative precepts.

In so doing, they have turned on other conservatives — people who agree with them on substance — and accused them of impurity and corruption for refusing to march their party and their movement over a political cliff.

It wasn’t House Speaker John Boehner who was responsible for a bill raising taxes on individuals and small businesses who earned $400,000 a year or more. That was the doing of President Obama and the Democrats, who had the stronger hand to play.

Boehner agrees with his fellow conservatives that the Obama approach is the wrong one. So does Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. But unless they found some kind of common ground to stand on with Democrats, taxes were automatically going to go up on everyone.

They were in a thankless position, and they did their thankless job — and for it they got, you guessed it, no thanks. “Am I in some kind of nightmare, or what?” Boehner said on the House floor as the tax bill was being voted on. Those are not the words of a happy man.

And yet you’d think, from the conduct and rhetoric of many conservatives in the House and outside the House and Senate, that Boehner and McConnell had “caved” willingly.

No, they caved because they had no choice.

What they did was what leaders do — or rather, what leaders of those who are in a losing position do. The best they could.

The problem is that conservatives seem to think there were other choices, other ways, other possibilities — when all those choices, ways and possibilities had been exhausted.

And so many of them are literally embracing chaos. Though they oppose raising taxes, by voting against the tax bill on Tuesday night they effectively voted to raise taxes on 98 percent of Americans.

(To be fair, it’s not just righties who are acting out: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, for one, went way over the edge this week, freaking out at a potential two-week delay in passage of the Sandy relief bills.)

Then came talk that Boehner should be fired as speaker of the House when the time came to vote in the new speaker yesterday afternoon. Yet none of the insurgents was brave enough to stand against him; instead, a bunch of them cast nonsense votes for someone else or refused to vote at all.

In so doing, they came close to handing Boehner a humiliating and entirely destructive defeat — forcing a second ballot and leaving their own party leader critically injured. They seemed to crave disorder.

This is how people who are more comfortable on the margins than in the middle of things behave. This is cannibalism, not political combat. This is unreason, not reason. This is temper, not temperament.

This is anarchism, not conservatism.

jpodhoretz@gmail.com

Have a comment on this PostOpinion column? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

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Portion of Macy’s Flagler Street property in downtown Miami sold

A New York firm bought part of the Macy’s building in downtown Miami and is expected to acquire the rest. The next priority is negotiating a new lease to keep Macy’s as a tenant.

In a deal that could have implications for the future of downtown Miami’s anchor retail tenant, a New York real estate investment firm paid $15.55 million to acquire more than half the property that now houses Macy’s Flagler Street store.

The acquisition by Aetna Realty Group includes the 48,000 square feet of land that was leased to R.W. Burdine in 1917. Until the recent sale, the property was owned by 23 heirs of Richard and Harriet Ashby, who signed the initial 99-year lease with Burdine. The lease expires in 2016.

The Ashby family began taking steps to prepare the property at the intersection of Miami Avenue and Flagler Street for sale nearly four years ago, said Lewis R. Cohen, a GrayRobinson lawyer who represented the Ashby family in the transaction that closed on New Year’s Eve.

Over the years, Macy’s and its predecessor, Burdines, grew the site’s downtown presence well beyond the Ashby land, and the current building now extends another 30,000 square feet of land. Aetna has also made a commitment to purchase the remaining portion of the building, that is currently owned by Macy’s, Cohen said. But that deal hasn’t closed yet.

“That deal is a sure thing,” Cohen said. “They could not have closed with us without having an agreement with Macy’s completely nailed down.”

When Macy’s decided not to purchase the Ashby land itself, the owners soughta third-party that could control both pieces. The reason: Improvements made to the store over the years straddled both properties, such as elevators and escalators starting on one parcel and ending on another.

“Between the engineering difficulties of severing the properties and the legal issues involved, it would have been somewhere between extremely expensive and impossible” for different entities to share control, Cohen said.

Aetna was one of three bidders interested in the site, Cohen said. One of the other players was the Barlington Group, a Miami developer that in 2011 signed a deal with Macy’s to sub-lease 20,000 square feet of empty ground-floor space for a mix of restaurants and cafes.

Macy’s spokesman Jim Sluzewski said this transaction doesn’t impact Macy’s current lease. He declined to comment on any other pending transaction regarding the property the retailer owns in downtown Miami.

“It’s business as usual,” said Sluzewski, who also would not discuss Macy’s long-term plans for downtown Miami beyond the expiration of its lease. The company’s roots in downtown Miami date to 1898, when the first Burdines opened in a nearby downtown location.

Aetna and its local attorneys did not respond to calls Wednesday for comments.

But Cohen said Macy’s is in the process of finalizing a short-term deal with the new owners.

“They intend to stay for at least the foreseeable future,” Cohen said. “For a minimum of five years they’ll be there and possibly longer.”

Downtown scene

Macy’s long-term future on Flagler Street has been in doubt since 2007, when Macy’s Florida then-Chairwoman Julie Greiner took city leaders to task for the deplorable conditions in downtown and threatened that the retailer might leave.

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Heroin deaths creep up statewide as other opiates become too expensive

Every time her son, Tod, relapsed, Maureen Barrett sat with him all day at a rehab facility, hoping she could save him.

Tod died last spring, after years of abusing opiates — everything from heroin to oxycodone. His death left Barrett, of Davie, to mourn the third child she lost to drugs.

Years earlier, Palm Beach County resident Karen Perry sent her son off to college, not knowing he’d gotten hooked first on oxycodone, and then something cheaper and stronger: heroin.

“At some point, it became expensive to buy prescription pills, so he started buying heroin,” she said, reflecting on her son’s fatal overdose.

Following a statewide war against prescription drug abuse, there are early signs of growing heroin use as an alternative to opiate pills, which are becoming harder and more expensive to get.

In an analysis of drug-related deaths for 2011, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement flagged heroin as one of the year’s most harmful drugs. Heroin deaths statewide increased by 18.8 percent to 62.

Fifteen of those heroin-related deaths happened in Miami — the second-highest number in the state, according to the FDLE report. Orlando was the first with 18 deaths. Fort Lauderdale had three.

Historically, heroin deaths statewide are lower than they have been in the past two decades. Deaths from the drug have been declining since a high of roughly 270 in 2001, according to FDLE data.

Still, experts say the recent increase is worrisome. Miami-Dade drug rehabilitation experts said they have seen a small but definite increase in patients who have switched from oxycodone or other prescription drugs to heroin within the past year.

“When I ask my patients, they say, ‘Yeah, I couldn’t get oxycodone, and now I’m using heroin, four or five bags,’ ” said Dr. Patricia Junquera, a University of Miami assistant professor of psychiatry and a doctor at Jackson Memorial Hospital’s detox unit. “I think more people are switching to heroin.’’

The change could mean big problems for Miami-Dade, which some doctors say is desperately lacking in detoxification facilities for the rich and poor alike.

There are only a handful of facilities in Miami-Dade County that provide detox services, both inpatient and outpatient, said Dr. Juan Oms, medical director of Miami Outpatient Detox, and the need is growing.

“I think it’s desperate at this point,’’ Oms said. “There is so much opiates and heroin out there.”

The trend is the result of changes to state law and crackdowns by law enforcement in recent years, in an effort to rid South Florida of its status as the pill-mill capital of America.

After the Florida Legislature realized the state was the focal point of a national prescription drug abuse epidemic, Gov. Rick Scott signed HB 7095 in June 2011, which put strict restrictions on prescription drug distribution.

The bill drastically cut back on who could dispense narcotics and expanded penalties for pill-mill operators.

If Florida was the focus of the pill-mill problem, Broward County was epicenter.

In 2007, the county had four pill mills. By 2009, that count had jumped to 130, Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti said. BSO mounted an effort to get rid of the pill mills, and three years later there were about 50 left, Lamberti said.

With some suppliers run out of business and laws preventing new mills from opening up, the price of pills jumped. Oms said the price of 30 milligrams of oxycodone jumped from about $10 to about $30 in 2012.

Some types of heroin are as cheap as $10 a hit, and addicts are going to pick the cheaper option without worrying about the painful detox process, said John Schmidt, founder of the Miami-based drug rehabilitation clinic Marvin’s Corner.

Dr. Paul Adams, attending emergency physician at Jackson Memorial Hospital, said drug trends are all about economics.

“When there’s no supply,” he said, “then all of the sudden you will fall back to other drugs, heroin being the standby.”

JMH detox specialist Junquera said she saw the number of heroin patients increase by about 50 percent at her clinic during the first six months or so of 2012. She said she sees about 25 people a week for inpatient heroin detox.

Schmidt said he has seen a steadily increasing stream of heroin addicts at his center. He expects the problem, growing slowly now, to “avalanche” into a large-scale drug problem much like the nationwide prescription drug abuse epidemic.

For Barrett, she hopes people will take notice so addicts can get help before it’s too late, as it was for her two sons and daughter-in-law.

“The need for help for the addicts, in terms of detox and recovery, has just risen tremendously, and of course we don’t have the funds,” she said. “I tried everything. Everything. I can’t tell you how many times my kids were in detox and rehab.”

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Judge rejects part of Apple App Store suit vs Amazon

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Wednesday rejected part of Apple Inc‘s lawsuit against Amazon.com Inc‘s use of the term App Store, ruling Apple cannot bring a false advertising claim against the online retailer.

U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in Oakland, California, granted Amazon‘s motion for partial summary judgment, which only challenged Apple’s false advertising allegations. Apple leveled other claims against Amazon, including trademark infringement.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment, and an Amazon representative could not be reached immediately.

Amazon has stepped up competition against Apple in recent years, launching its cheaper Kindle tablet computer to go after the dominant iPad and trying to lure mobile application developers to its Kindle platform.

One of the first public clashes in their tussle was Apple’s 2011 lawsuit.

Apple accused Amazon of misusing what it calls its APP STORE to solicit developers for a mobile software download service. However, Amazon said its so-called Appstore has become so generic that its use could not constitute false advertising.

In a legal filing last year, Amazon added that even Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook and his predecessor, Steve Jobs, used the term to discuss rivals. Cook commented on “the number of app stores out there” and Jobs referred to the “four app stores on Android.”

In her ruling on Wednesday, Hamilton wrote that the mere use of “Appstore” by Amazon cannot be taken as a representation that its service is the same as Apple’s.

“Apple has failed to establish that Amazon made any false statement (express or implied) of fact that actually deceived or had the tendency to deceive a substantial segment of its audience,” Hamilton wrote.

A trial on Apple’s remaining claims is scheduled for August.

The case is Apple Inc v. Amazon.com Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 11-01327.

(Additional reporting by Alistair Barr in San Francisco; Editing by Tim Dobbyn and Jeffrey Benkoe)

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Adam Lambert Criticizes Les Miserables Russell Crowe Responds

Adam Lambert was one of the Americans who forked over millions ($66 million, to be exact) to see Les Miserables over the Christmas holiday and his 9 Tweet review of the film garnered a lot of attention over the weekend.

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"Les Mis: Visually impressive w great Emotional performances. But the score suffered massively with great actors PRETENDING to be singers," Lambert wrote on December 30. "It's an opera. Hollywoods movie musicals treat the singing as the last priority. (Dreamgirls was good). Anne Hathaway as Fantine and Enjolras were the exceptions for me. Helena B Carter and Sasha B Cohen were great too. And I do think it was cool they were singing live- but with that cast, they should have studio recorded and sweetened the vocals. I felt like I should ignore the vocals and focus on the emotional subtext- but the singing was so distracting at times it pulled me out. The industry will say 'these actors were so brave to attempt singing this score live' but why not cast actors who could actually sound good? Sorry for being so harsh but it's so True!"

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Now, an unexpected ally has taken Lambert's side in this debate: Les Miserables star Russell Crowe!

Last night, @BrunetteMom123 Tweeted at Crowe, "Not sure if you saw @adamlambert's comments about Les Miserables. He was pretty opinionated."

The Oscar-winner responded, "I don't disagree with Adam, sure it could have been sweetened, [Les Miserables director Tom] Hooper wanted it raw and real, that's how it is."

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On Wednesday, the singer took back to Twitter to once again talk about the movie.

"My movie review has gone viral. U can spend a whole year praising artists for inspiring work, but one critique gets all the attention. Funny," Lambert tweeted, continuing, "Those raw and real moments when characters broke down or were expressing the ugliness of the human condition were superb. However... My personal opinion: there were times when the vocals weren't able to convey the power, beauty and grace that the score ALSO calls for."

Lambert then shouted out to the original Broadway cast, "I guess I'm a purist for the original LIVE broadway recording when the actors sang the f*ck outta those songs. JUST an opinion... "

And that's when Lambert decided to put the whole thing to rest, "I should prob stop fanning the flames on this one..but i love a good debate- couldnt help myself," adding finally, "One last thing though: Anne Hathaway was so good- had me tearing up. Oscar worthy performance for sure! Ok. #donediscussinglesmiz."

No response yet from Crowe or the cast.

What do you think? Was Adam Lambert right, or was the live singing part of the film's charm? Weigh in below!

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Just sold!

Manhattan

EAST HARLEM $400,000

333 E. 109th St.

One-bedroom, one-bath condo, 675 square feet, with Italian kitchen with stainless-steel appliances and Caesarstone counters and backsplash, tiled-and-teak bath with soaking tub and rainfall shower, washer/dryer and floor-to-ceiling windows; building features gym, courtyard, Jacuzzi, half-basketball court, BBQ, fireplace and lounge with flat-screen TV. Common charges $318, taxes $15. Asking price $430,000, on market 63 weeks. Brokers: Sahar Ziy, Douglas Elliman and Grace Chan, The Corcoran Group

LINCOLN SQUARE $830,000

161 W. 61st St.

One-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath condo, 915 square feet, with foyer, renovated pass-through kitchen, dining alcove, en-suite bath and washer/dryer; building features doorman, garage, gym with pool, sauna and hot tub, garden, storage and bike room. Common charges $1,195, taxes $891. Asking price $850,000, on market 16 weeks. Broker: Monica Manalo, Halstead Property

Long Island

PORT WASHINGTON $368,000

73 Carlton Ave.

Two-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath duplex condo, 1,228 square feet, with eat-in kitchen with dishwasher, dining room, wall-to-wall carpeting and deck; building features parking, laundry, storage and bike room. Common charges $394, taxes $275. Asking price $399,000, on market three weeks. Brokers: Kathleen Christie, Laffey Fine Homes and Heidi Karagianis, Accents on Real Estate

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Housing, jobs key to lifting S&P toward record

NEW YORK --
With it appearing that Washington lawmakers are working their way past the “fiscal cliff,” many analysts say that the outlook for stocks in 2013 is good, as a recovering housing market and an improving jobs outlook helps the economy maintain a slow, but steady recovery.

Reasonable returns in 2013 would send the S&P 500 toward, and possibly past, its record close of 1,565 reached in October 2007.

A mid-year rally in 2012 pushed stocks to their highest in more than four years. Both the Standard & Poor’s 500 and the Dow Jones industrial average posted strong gains in 2012. Those advances came despite uncertainty about the outcome of the presidential election and bouts of turmoil from Europe, where policy makers finally appear to be getting a grip on the region’s debt crisis.

“As you remove little bits of uncertainty, investors can then once again return to focusing on the fundamentals,” says Joseph Tanious, a global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds. “Corporate America is actually doing quite well.”

Although earnings growth of S&P 500 listed companies dipped as low as 0.8 percent in the summer, analysts are predicting that it will rebound to average 9.5 percent for 2013, according to data from S&P Capital IQ. Companies have also been hoarding cash. The amount of cash and cash-equivalents being held by companies listed in the S&P 500 climbed to an all-time high $1 trillion at the end of September, 65 percent more than five years ago, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Assuming a budget deal is reached in a reasonable amount of time, investors will be more comfortable owning stocks in 2013, allowing valuations to rise, says Tanious.

Stocks in the S&P 500 index are currently trading on a price-to-earnings multiple of about 13.5, compared with the average of 17.9 since 1988, according to S&P Capital IQ data. The ratio rises when investors are willing to pay more for a stock’s future earnings potential.

The stock market will also likely face less drag from the European debt crisis this year, said Steven Bulko, the chief investment officer at Lombard Odier Investment Managers. While policy makers in Europe have yet to come up with a comprehensive solution to the region’s woes, they appear to have a better handle on the region’s problems than they have for quite some time.

Stocks fell in the second quarter of 2012 as investors fretted that the euro region’s government debt crisis was about to engulf Spain and possibly Italy, increasing the chances of a dramatic slowdown in global economic growth.

“There is still some heavy lifting that needs to be done in Europe,” said Bulko. Now, though, “we are dealing with much more manageable risk than we have had in the past few years.”

Next year may also see an increase in mergers and acquisitions as companies seeks to make use of the cash on their balance sheets, says Jarred Kessler, global head of equities at broker Cantor Fitzgerald.

While the number of M&A deals has gradually crept higher in the past four years, the dollar value of the deals remains well short of the total reached five years ago. U.S. targeted acquisitions totaled $964 billion through Dec. 27, according to data tracking firm Dealogic. That’s slightly down from last year’s total of $1 trillion and about 40 percent lower than in 2007, when deals worth $1.6 trillion were struck.

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Man grazed by stray bullet in Miami on New Year’s Eve

A stray bullet fired into the air just after midnight on New Year’s Eve struck a man as he celebrated at a party in Miami, according to police.

The bullet grazed the man’s upper left shoulder. Paramedics treated him outside the Allapattah home at Northwest 25th Avenue and 32nd Street. The man, who was not identified, wasn’t taken to a hospital.

Miami police spokesman Detective Willie Moreno confirmed that the victim was struck by a stray bullet.

Homeowner Randy Ruiz said the injured man was a friend of a friend who was visiting his home on New Year’s Eve.

“We had a lot of friends and family in my yard, and fireworks were being fired off,” Ruiz said. “Just after midnight, one of the guests complained of blood on his shirt. So we quickly ran over to see what was going on and saw there was blood on his left arm.”

Neighbor Barbara Jimeno, who has three grandchildren between the ages of one and four, said she was alarmed by what happened.

“It could happen to me or my grandchildren, who live around the block,” she said.

The injury followed a series of warnings from the Miami mayor, Miami police and activists about the dangers of firing bullets into the air on New Years Eve.

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