Young monks rehearsed an evening candlelight ceremony at the Chedi Luang temple in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The country’s Buddhist temples are as much a part of the landscape as rice paddies and palm trees. But many temples in rural Thailand have fallen quiet.
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Instagram tests new limits in user privacy
Label: TechnologySAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Instagram, which spurred suspicions this week that it would sell user photos after revising its terms of service, has sparked renewed debate about how much control over personal data users must give up to live and participate in a world steeped in social media.
In forcefully establishing a new set of usage terms, Instagram, the massively popular photo-sharing service owned by Facebook Inc, has claimed some rights that have been practically unheard of among its prominent social media peers, legal experts and consumer advocates say.
Users who decline to accept Instagram’s new privacy policy have one month to delete their accounts, or they will be bound by the new terms. Another clause appears to waive the rights of minors on the service. And in the wake of a class-action settlement involving Facebook and privacy issues, Instagram has added terms to shield itself from similar litigation.
All told, the revised terms reflect a new, draconian grip over user rights, experts say.
“This is all uncharted territory,” said Jay Edelson, a partner at the Chicago law firm Edelson McGuire. “If Instagram is to encourage as many lawsuits as possible and as much backlash as possible then they succeeded.”
Instagram’s new policies, which go into effect January 16, lay the groundwork for the company to begin generating advertising revenue by giving marketers the right to display profile pictures and other personal information such as who users follow in advertisements.
The new terms, which allow an advertiser to pay Instagram “to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata)” without compensation, triggered an outburst of complaints on the Web on Tuesday from users upset that Instagram would make money from their uploaded content.
The uproar prompted a lengthy blog post from the company to “clarify” the changes, with CEO Kevin Systrom saying the company had no current plans to incorporate photos taken by users into ads.
Instagram declined comment beyond its blog post, which failed to appease critics including National Geographic, which suspended new posts to Instagram. “We are very concerned with the direction of the proposed new terms of service and if they remain as presented we may close our account,” said National Geographic, an early Instagram adopter.
PUSHING BOUNDARIES
Consumer advocates said Facebook was using Instagram’s aggressive new terms to push the boundaries of how social media sites can make money while its own hands were tied by recent agreements with regulators and class action plaintiffs.
Under the terms of a 2011 settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, Facebook is required to get user consent before personal information is shared beyond their privacy settings. A preliminary class action lawsuit settlement with Facebook allows users to opt-out of being included in the “sponsored stories” ads that use their personal information.
Under Instagram’s new terms, users who want to opt-out must simply quit using the service.
“Instagram has given people a pretty stark choice: Take it or leave, and if you leave it you’ve got to leave the service,” said Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a Internet user right’s group.
What’s more, he said, if a user initially agrees to the new terms but then has a change of mind, their information could still be used for commercial purposes.
In a post on its official blog on Tuesday, Instagram did not address another controversial provision that states that if a child under the age of 18 uses the service, then it is implied that his or her parent has tacitly agreed to Instagram’s terms.
“The notion is that minors can’t be bound to a contract. And that also means they can’t be bound to a provision that says they agree to waive the rights,” said the EFF’s Opsahl.
BLOCKING CLASS ACTION SUITS
While Facebook continues to be bogged in its own class action suit, Instagram took preventive steps to avoid a similar legal morass.
Its new terms of service require users with a legal complaint to enter arbitration, rather than take the company to court. It prohibits users from joining a class action lawsuit unless they mail a written “opt-out” statement to Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park within 30 days of joining Instagram.
That provision is not included in terms of service for other leading social media companies like Twitter, Google, YouTube or even Facebook itself, and it immunizes Instagram from many forms of legal liability, said Michael Rustad, a professor at Suffolk University Law School.
Rustad, who has studied the terms of services for 157 social media services, said just 10 contained provisions prohibiting class action lawsuits.
The clause effectively cripples users who want to legally challenge the company because lawyers will not likely represent an individual plaintiff, Rustad argued.
“No lawyers will take these cases,” Rustad said. “In consumer arbitration cases, everything is stacked against the consumer. It’s a pretense, it’s a legal fiction, that there are remedies.”
Instagram, which has 100 million users, allows consumers to tweak the photos they take on their smartphones and share the images with friends. Facebook acquired Instagram in September for $ 715 million.
Instagram’s take-it-or-leave-it policy pushes the envelope for how social networking companies treat user privacy issues, said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
“I think Facebook is probably using Instagram to see how far it can press this advertising model,” said Rotenberg. “If they can keep a lot of users, then all those users have agreed to have their images as part of advertising.”
(Additional reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
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The Voice Crowns a Winner!
Label: Lifestyle
TV Watch
By Julia Haskins
12/18/2012 at 11:20 PM EST
From left: Terry McDermott, Cassadee Pope, Nicholas David and host Carson Daly
Tyler Golden/NBC
The Voice has a new winner!
After several powerful performances the night before, the top three singers – Nicholas David (of Team Cee Lo) and Terry McDermott and Cassadee Pope (of Blake Shelton's team) – faced the music on Tuesday during the final results show of season 3.
Which one was the winner? Keep reading to find out ...
Cassadee Pope was named the winner of The Voice!
Pope thanked her fans who supported her throughout the competition. She was joined onstage by McDermott, who was the runner-up, and David, who came in third place.
It was a night of music as Rihanna, newly engaged Kelly Clarkson, Bruno Mars and the Killers celebrated with the finalists by displaying their talents.
Season 4 of The Voice premieres March 25, 2013, with Shakira and Usher stepping in to take over for Christina Aguilera and Cee Lo Green.
Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma
Label: HealthWASHINGTON (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.
"Fiscal cliff" hopes lift Asian shares, other risk assets
Label: BusinessTOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares and other risk assets rose on Tuesday as signs of compromise sparked new optimism that the U.S. "fiscal cliff" budget tussle could be settled before tax hikes and spending cuts begin to bite early next year.
Differences over how to resolve the fiscal cliff narrowed significantly Monday night as President Barack Obama made a counter-offer to Republicans that included a major change in position on tax hikes for the wealthy, according to a source familiar with the talks.
The move, which the source stressed was not Obama's final offer, was welcomed by a spokesman for Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, potentially advancing negotiations towards a deal by the end-year deadline.
Oil, copper and gold also firmed on the prospect of progress in the U.S. budget talks, which reduced worries about economic damage, but expectations of more monetary easing in Japan kept the yen soft.
"The market will view any advance in talks as positive for confidence, which has been battered by the daily flow of political fighting," Ben Taylor, sales trader at CMC Markets said in a report.
"Regardless of what is decided, the market is looking for a decision and any compromise will help provide a clearer picture for the future."
European shares were expected to keep up the positive momentum, with financial spreadbetters predicting London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> will open as much as 0.5 percent higher. A 0.3 percent gain in U.S. stock futures suggested a higher Wall Street opening. <.l><.eu><.n/>
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> was up 0.2 percent, following a rise in global shares on Monday. The index snapped an eight-day winning streak on Monday as investors took profits from last week's rally.
Regional equities also took direction from local factors.
Australian shares <.axjo> gained 0.5 percent to a 17-month high, with resource stocks elevated by a rise in iron ore prices <.io62-cni> to a five-month high.
"Iron ore is a very key commodity in the Chinese industrial machine, steel usage will bounce back and that is good news for our exporters," said Baillieu Holst director Richard Morrow.
Seoul shares <.ks11> rose marginally but underperformed some others in Asia, as investors were reluctant to build positions ahead of South Korea's presidential vote on Wednesday.
London copper was up 0.3 percent to $8,085 a metric ton (1.1023 tons).
"Before the end of the year, I don't really see huge selling pressure, with improving data from China and expectations for a resolution to the fiscal cliff," said analyst Bonnie Liu of Macquarie.
U.S. crude surged 0.8 percent to $87.85 a barrel and Brent rose 0.7 percent to $108.41.
Spot gold added 0.3 percent to $1,702.01 an ounce.
Solid performance in stocks boosted Asian credit markets, narrowing the spreads on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment-grade index by two basis points.
JAPAN POLITICS MATTER
In Japan, the Nikkei average <.n225> closed up 1.0 percent at an 8-1/2-month high and edged closer to the key 10,000-mark, with sentiment bolstered by a landslide election win for the conservative Liberal Democratic Party on Sunday. <.t/>
LDP leader Shinzo Abe, due to be confirmed as Japan's premier on December 26, is calling for far more aggressive monetary stimulus and huge public works spending to rescue Japan from decades-long deflation. His pledges are seen as pressuring the yen and supporting Japanese stocks by improving earnings for the country's exporters.
"The Nikkei is up today primarily due to the rise in U.S. stocks overnight, but the 'Abe-effect' is surprisingly longer-lasting as investors seem to be postponing the timing of unwinding their positions until they see the details and specifics in policies," said Ayako Sera, market economist at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank.
The dollar inched up 0.1 percent to 83.96 yen, off a 20-month high of 84.48 yen hit on Monday but well above its late New York levels on Friday.
Abe applied fresh pressure on the Bank of Japan on Monday, saying that the election result reflected strong public support for his views, which he hoped the BOJ would take into account at its two-day policy meeting starting on Wednesday.
"The dollar has more upside against the yen ahead of the BOJ's meeting, with expectations for some additional easing steps being strengthened after Abe's comments yesterday," said Yuji Saito, director of foreign exchange at Credit Agricole in Tokyo.
"The corrective fall in the dollar/yen after the election was small and it's crawling up because the yen weakening trend is still intact. But after the BOJ meeting, there will likely be pre-holiday profit-taking, pushing the dollar/yen down by 1 to 2 yen," Saito said, adding that the dollar could temporarily touch 85 yen before profit-taking sets in by year-end.
Concerns that big-scale fiscal stimulus could seriously increase the country's debt burden pushed the benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond yield to a one-month high of 0.750 percent.
U.S. Treasury yields also inched up in Asia, with the 10-year yields briefly reaching 1.796 percent, its highest level since October 26, on hopes for a deal on the U.S. fiscal cliff. [US/T
(Additional reporting by Victoria Thieberger in Melbourne and Manash Goswami and Melanie Burton in Singapore; Editing by Richard Borsuk)
Hard Times in Spain Force Feuding Couples to Delay Divorce
Label: World
SABADELL, SPAIN — Esther Fernández, 45, was desperate for a divorce. A hairdresser, she had fallen in love with another man, who was dying of cancer.
Her husband, Gaby Cuadrado, 47, had lost his factory job. Selling their house in a depressed market in this sleepy city outside Barcelona was impossible. Neither could afford a second home. They were already struggling to pay their mortgage. An expensive divorce was out of the question.
So for two years she stuck it out, leaving before dawn, hiding from Mr. Cuadrado, who said he became so obsessed with his wife that he would spy on her from his car. She had panic attacks. “I felt trapped,” she said.
It was even worse for him. The situation, Mr. Cuardado said, pushed him to the brink of suicide. “Being forced to live with a woman I loved who had rejected me was psychological torture,” he said. They finally divorced in November, after moving to tiny apartments in bad parts of town.
If marriage is for better or worse, richer or poorer, then these are the worst of times for a poorer Spain. Couples are paying the emotional price, especially when they cannot afford the price of divorce.
Fewer of them can. Accounts from judges, divorce lawyers and therapists — as well as couples themselves — indicate that many Spaniards are staying in troubled relationships longer as a result of an economic crisis that has ground on for nearly five years.
Last year, the number of divorces in Spain dropped 17 percent compared with 2006, according to the Spanish Judicial Council, a national association that represents the country’s judges. The divorce rate jumped in 2006 after changes to the divorce law made it easier to split up in 2005, but it has fallen with the crisis in Spain’s economy, according to the council.
“There is no doubt that the crisis is pushing people to stay together,” said José María Redondo, the council’s spokesman, who attributed the drop in the divorce rate to a burst housing bubble and hard economic times.
The crisis is not only slowing divorces but also transforming the process, according to divorce lawyers. Judges are reducing alimony payments and dueling spouses have moved from fighting over property to sparring over the critical issue of who assumes debts.
Some couples are literally dividing their homes in two, by sticking tape across the floor, said Álvaro Cavia, a leading Barcelona-based divorce lawyer. Unable to afford a divorce, other couples live together even as they engage openly in other romantic relationships.
Squabbles over money — or the lack of it — are the biggest source of contention among couples seeking to mend fraying relationships, according to Myka Pedrero, a family psychologist in a suburb of Barcelona, who counseled Ms. Fernández, her sister.
It is worst for jobless couples, she said, not just because of the money strains, but because they often spend all day together at home, treading on each others’ nerves. When warring couples share the same quarters it is especially confusing for children unable to accept their parents’ break-ups, she said.
“The crisis makes things worse as it adds huge pressures to marriages when you don’t have a job and can’t pay the bills,” she said. “When people who want to split are forced to stay together it pollutes the whole ecosystem that is the family and drives both the man and the woman crazy.”
Until the crisis exploded, legal experts say, divorce was widely accepted as the easiest exit from a bad marriage after decades during which it was prohibited during the Franco dictatorship.
Divorce was first legalized in Spain 1981 but the law required couples to legally separate first, a period of reflection aimed at safeguarding the family in a socially conservative, Catholic country. The change in the law in 2005 has allowed couples to get “express divorces” without any separation. Couples need to have been married for at least three months to qualify.
Even when couples can afford a divorce, the economic crisis has added new complications.
Silvia Taulés contributed reporting from Barcelona.
How to turn an old Kindle Fire into a Nexus 7 with Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean [video]
Label: TechnologyTitle Post: How to turn an old Kindle Fire into a Nexus 7 with Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean [video]
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The Voice's Top Three Give Final Performances in the Competition
Label: Lifestyle
TV Watch
The Voice
By Julia Haskins
12/17/2012 at 10:25 PM EST
From left: Judges Adam Levine, Cee Lo Green, Christina Aguilera and Blake Shelton
Trae Patton/NBC
Monday night's episode of The Voice gave the final three contestants three chances to earn fans' votes. Each singer revisited a "breakout" song that set them apart in the competition, sang a new song and performed a duet with his or her coach.
But the night opened with a touching tribute to the victims of the Sandy Hook tragedy. Coaches and singers held up the names of each life lost while singing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah."
Team Cee Lo's Nicholas David then kicked off the competition with Jerry Lee Lewis's "Great Balls of Fire." Not able to resist a pun, his coach chimed in on his performance: "Your fire tonight burned this house down," Green said. David later revisited his performance of Bill Withers's "Lean On Me," and joined Green for a duet of Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music."
Team Blake's two contestants also had the crowd cheering. Terry McDermott's sang his best song, Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is," and took a stab at Mr. Mister's "Take These Broken Wings." But the crowning moment of the night for McDermott was his duet with Shelton of Aerosmith's "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)." Adam Levine played guitar alongside them, decked out in a long rocker wig.
Cassadee Pope sang "Over You," which her coach and his wife, Miranda Lambert, co-wrote. She received huge praise for singing it the first time, but the song about Shelton's late brother had special meaning in the wake of the shootings in Newtown, Conn. "America's heart is heavy, and that's about healing," Shelton said. She also moved the coaches with her take on Faith Hill's "Cry." "I don't care that you weren't on my team," Levine said. "I am so proud of you and so happy that you're here at this moment." Pope finished the night with Shelton for a duet of Sheryl Crow's "Steve McQueen."
The Voice returns Tuesday, when the season's winner will be named. Who will it be? Tell us in the comments below.
Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence
Label: HealthNEW 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
Wall Street Week Ahead: Holiday "on standby" as clock ticks on cliff
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - The last two weeks of December are traditionally quiet for stocks, but traders accustomed to a bit of time off are staying close to their mobile devices, thanks to the "fiscal cliff."
Last-minute negotiations in Washington on the so-called fiscal cliff - nearly $600 billion of tax increases and spending cuts set to take effect in January that could cause a sharp slowdown in growth or even a recession - are keeping some traders and analysts from taking Christmas holidays because any deal could have a big impact on markets.
"A lot of firms are saying to their trading desks, 'You can take days off for Christmas, but you are on standby to come in if anything happens.' This is certainly different from previous years, especially around this time of the year when things are supposed to be slowing down," said J.J. Kinahan, chief derivatives strategist at TD Ameritrade in Chicago.
"Next week is going to be a Capitol Hill-driven market."
With talks between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner at an apparent standstill, it was increasingly likely that Washington will not come up with a deal before January 1.
Gordon Charlop, managing director at Rosenblatt Securities in New York, will also be on standby for the holiday season.
"It's a 'Look guys, let's just rotate and be sensible" type of situation going on," Charlop said.
"We are hopeful there is some resolution down there, but it seems to me they continue to walk that political tightrope... rather than coming up with something."
Despite concerns that the deadline will pass without a deal, the S&P 500 has held its ground with a 12.4 percent gain for the year. For this week, though, the S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent.
BEWARE OF THE WITCH
This coming Friday will mark the last so-called "quadruple witching" day of the year, when contracts for stock options, single stock futures, stock index options and stock index futures all expire. This could make trading more volatile.
"We could see some heavy selling as there is going to be a lot of re-establishing of positions, reallocation of assets before the year-end," Kinahan said.
RETHINKING APPLE
Higher tax rates on capital gains and dividends are part of the automatic tax increases that will go into effect next year, if Congress and the White House don't come up with a solution to avert the fiscal cliff. That possibility could give investors an incentive to unload certain stocks in some tax-related selling by December 31.
Some market participants said tax-related selling may be behind the weaker trend in the stock price of market leader Apple . Apple's stock has lost a quarter of its value since it hit a lifetime high of $705.07 on September 21.
On Friday, the stock fell 3.8 percent to $509.79 after the iPhone 5 got a chilly reception at its debut in China and two analysts cut shipment forecasts. But the stock is still up nearly 26 percent for the year.
"If you owned Apple for a long time, you should be thinking about reallocation as there will be changes in taxes and other regulations next year, although we don't really know which rules to play by yet," Kinahan said.
But one indicator of the market's reduced concern about the fiscal cliff compared with a few weeks ago, is the defense sector, which will be hit hard if the spending cuts take effect. The PHLX Defense Sector Index <.dfx> is up nearly 13 percent for the year, and sits just a few points from its 2012 high.
(Reporting by Angela Moon; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)
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