Nats bolster pitching staff with deal for Haren

(Reuters) - The Washington Nationals bolstered their already strong pitching rotation by agreeing to a one-year, $13 million contract with right-hander Dan Haren, Major League Baseball's (MLB) website reported on Tuesday.
Haren, pending a physical, will join a rotation that boasts Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann and Gio Gonzalez, effectively replacing Edwin Jackson from a staff that helped the Nats to an MLB-best 98-64 record last season.
Three-time All-Star Haren played the last two-plus seasons with the Los Angeles Angels. Haren, 32, missed time because of back and hip injuries but still made 30 starts and won 12 games for Los Angeles last season.
Haren, who has a career 119-97 record, began his career with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2003 before playing three seasons with the Oakland Athletics and two and a half seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

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Giants agree deal to keep playoff hero Scutaro

(Reuters) - National League Championship Series MVP Marco Scutaro has agreed a $20 million three-year deal to stay with the San Francisco Giants, the World Series winners said on Tuesday.
The 37-year-old second baseman was acquired by San Francisco in a mid-season trade with Colorado and he paid great dividends down the stretch as the Giants claimed their second World Series in three years.
Scutaro batted .362 with 44 RBIs in his 61 regular season games with the Giants, then he raised his game when it mattered most during the post-season.
Scutaro is the third free agent retained by San Francisco as they keep their championship core intact.
The team also agreed to contracts with pitcher Jeremy Affeldt and outfielder Angel Pagan.
(Writing by Jahmal Corner in Los Angeles.

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Reds land Korean Choo in trade with Indians, D-Backs

(Reuters) - The Cincinnati Reds acquired South Korean outfielder Choo Shin-soo from the Cleveland Indians on Tuesday in a three-team trade that involved nine players.
The 30-year-old Choo, entering the final year of his contract, declined to sign an extension with the Indians and will now give the Reds a potential lead-off hitter who batted .283 with 16 home runs last season.
"He fills the one big void that we had and that was a lead-off hitter and someone with the ability to get on base," Reds General Manager Walt Jocketty told MLB.com.
The Reds also picked up infielder Jason Donald and $3.5 million from Cleveland.
In exchange, the Indians receive outfielder Drew Stubbs and 21-year-old pitching prospect Trevor Bauer from the Reds along with pitchers Matt Albers and Bryan Shaw from the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The Diamondbacks get shortstop Didi Gregorius from Cincinnati along with pitcher Tony Sipp and infielder Lars Anderson from the Indians.

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An iPhone priced below $200 would devastate RIM and Nokia – and Apple’s margins

Both Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal now believe Apple (AAPL) is seriously considering launching a cheap iPhone. Speculation about this has been going on for years. But the probable price range mentioned by Bloomberg is a huge shock: The rumored retail price range of $100 to $150 is far below what had earlier been assumed. The iPhone 5 tends to sell for more than $700 in emerging markets. The 2-year old iPhone still costs more than $500. That is the reason why iPhone market share is fading below 5% in major markets like Brazil. But industry experts had widely assumed that the retail price of a low-end iPhone would be somewhere around $250 to $300. Even this would trigger radical changes in the handset markets around the globe.
[More from BGR: iPhone 5 now available with unlimited service, no contract on Walmart’s $45 Straight Talk plan]
Anything under $200 would be an earthquake. Smartphones with capacitive touch screens and 1 GHz processors selling under $150 at retail cannot have operating margins above 15%. Nokia (NOK) has 70 million unit quarterly feature phone volumes and a lot of experience in tight cost control. Yet even Nokia cannot get the operating margins of its latest and most desirable Asha models costing less than $150 much above 10%. You can only lower touch screen quality or processing power of a low-end iPhone so far. Moving to a resistive touch screen or a 600 MHz processor would splinter the iOS app market.
[More from BGR: CES has sadly become a complete waste of time]
If Apple truly is willing to dive into the sub-$200 gutter, the impact on vendors from RIM (RIMM) and Nokia to HTC (2498) and LG (066570) would be devastating. The best-selling prepaid smartphone in the United Kingdom right now may be the Huawei Ascend G300, a device with 4-inch display, 5 megapixel camera and 2.5 GB of internal memory that sells for about $160. This is the sweet spot of the budget smartphone market from Europe to Asia. It is quite possible to do a cheap iPhone with these specs, priced at $150 in the fourth quarter of 2013 and shoot for maybe a 10% operating margin.
That device would sell a hundred million units in a year with no marketing, if the production can be ramped up fast enough. It would reverse the market share losses Apple has recently suffered from Brazil to Germany literally in a quarter or two. But would Apple really be willing to tolerate the massive margin hit such a product would trigger? Being the champion of the mobile software market is worth a lot. But a sub-$150 iPhone would carry the obvious risk of cannibalizing the $650 iPhone sales deeply and permanently. The performance requirements created by the iOS app market prevent Apple from constraining the budget iPhone with truly low-end components.
Of course, the strategic impact of a bargain basement iPhone would be momentous. Apple would get to play Attila the Hun and literally wipe out smaller rivals who couldn’t possibly undercut a $150 iPhone on price. It is worth noting that one of the best-selling Nokia feature phones, the Asha 311, costs about $140 in retail. If Bloomberg is right, Apple is preparing to attack with a smartphone priced to the level of a feature phone that was created specifically for Africa and India.
It is clear that Apple is being forced into a corner. Google (GOOG) Play app revenue growth is now far faster than iOS app revenue growth. Instat claims that the page views of Android smartphones have started soaring above page views of iPhones across various markets. Apple cannot allow Google to gain hegemony in mobile content consumption in Asia, Latin America and Africa. Something has to be done. But the plunge into deep budget territory that Bloomberg is describing is very difficult to believe.

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Samsung sets sights on RIM’s corporate users

Now that Samsung (005930) has bested Apple in the consumer smartphone market, at least where shipment volume is concerned, the company is setting its sights on Research in Motion’s (RIMM) corporate user base. The company is investing heavily in enterprise devices that incorporate a higher level of security and reliability than consumers require. Various government agencies and corporations aren’t fully sold on RIM’s upcoming BlackBerry 10 operating system and are still unsure if will satisfy their needs. As a result, they have begun to explore alternatives for their employees.
[More from BGR: iPhone 5 now available with unlimited service, no contract on Walmart’s $45 Straight Talk plan]
“The enterprise space has suddenly become wide open,” Kevin Packingham, chief product officer for Samsung Mobile USA, said in an interview with Reuters. “The RIM problems certainly fueled a lot of what the CIOs are going through, which is they want to get away from a lot of the proprietary solutions.”
[More from BGR: CES has sadly become a complete waste of time]
The executive revealed that Samsung’s corporate market ambitions advanced after its flagship Galaxy S III smartphone gained various security certifications. He noted that companies “want something that integrates what they are doing with their IT systems,” and that “Samsung is investing in that area.” Packingham said that enterprise has been a focus of the company for a long time and its products have finally evolved enough to “really take advantage” of the market.
“We knew we had to build more tech devices to successfully enter the enterprise market,” he said. “What really turned that needle was that we had the power of the GS3.

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Three top U.S. wireless carriers to embrace BlackBerry 10

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Three of the top U.S. cellphone carriers signaled this week that they would support Research In Motion's BlackBerry 10 products, the first of which are due to be unveiled Jan 30, offering a hopeful sign for RIM's comeback effort.
Executives at Verizon Communications , AT&T Inc and T-Mobile USA all said they are looking forward to the devices, which will be crucial for RIM's chances of regaining lost ground from rivals such as Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics .
"We're hopeful its going to be a good device," Lowell McAdam, chief executive of Verizon Communications, majority owner of the biggest U.S. mobile service Verizon Wireless.
"We'll carry it," McAdam said in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
BlackBerry 10 is RIM's next-generation mobile operating platform and it is preparing to launch new smartphones later this month. Word that major carriers will offer the devices is good news for RIM.
RIM, which once commanded the lead in the smartphone market, has rapidly lost ground to Apple's iPhone and Samsung's line of Galaxy products, especially in North American and European markets, as customers abandon its aging BlackBerry devices.
It has been testing the new BlackBerry 10 devices with carriers so they can assess their compatibility with networks.
No. 4 U.S. mobile provider T-Mobile USA, a unit of Deutsche Telekom , also plans to carry the new BlackBerry 10.
"We're extremely optimistic that it's going to be a successful product and our business customers are extremely interested in it," Chief Executive John Legere said.
AT&T has promised to support the BlackBerry 10 platform, according to Chief Marketing Officer David Christopher, but he would not discuss specific devices.
However, AT&T handset executive Jeff Bradley made it clear that the No. 2 U.S. mobile operator would carry the phone.
"It's logical to expect our current (BlackBerry) customers will have the best BlackBerry devices to choose from in the future," Bradley said.

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Rate on 30-year mortgage ticks up to 4 percent

WASHINGTON (AP) — The average rate on the 30-year mortgage hovered above the record low for a third straight week. But cheap mortgage rates have done little to boost home sales or refinancing.
Freddie Mac said Thursday that the rate on the 30-year loan ticked up to 4 percent from 3.99 percent. Six weeks ago, it dropped to a record low of 3.94 percent, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The average rate on the 15-year fixed mortgage rose to 3.31 percent from 3.30 percent. Six weeks ago, it hit a record low of 3.26 percent.
Rates have been below 5 percent for all but two weeks this year. Yet this year could be the worst for home sales in 14 years.
Mortgage applications fell 10 percent this week from the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
High unemployment and scant wage gains have made it harder for many people to qualify for loans. Many Americans don't want to sink money into a home that could lose value over the next three to four years. And most homeowners who can afford to refinance already have.
The low rates have caused a modest boom in refinancing, but that benefit might be wearing off. Most people who can afford to refinance have already locked in rates below 5 percent. Refinancing fell 12.2 percent last week, according to the mortgage bankers group.
The average rates don't include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.
The average fees for the 30-year and 15-year fixed mortgages were unchanged at 0.7.
The average rate on the five-year adjustable loan fell to 2.97 percent from 2.98 percent. The average rate on the one-year adjustable loan increased to 2.98 percent from 2.95 percent.
The average fees on the five-year and one-year adjustable loans were both unchanged at 0.6.
To calculate average mortgage rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country Monday through Wednesday of each week.

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Rate on 30-year fixed mortgage falls to 3.98 pct.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage hovered above its record low for a fourth straight week. But cheap mortgage rates have done little to boost home sales or refinancing.
Freddie Mac says the rate on the 30-year fixed loan fell to 3.98 percent from 4 percent the previous week. Seven weeks ago, it dropped to a record low of 3.94 percent, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The average rate on the 15-year fixed mortgage edged down to 3.3 percent from 3.31 percent. Seven weeks ago, it too hit a record low of 3.26 percent.
Rates have been below 5 percent for all but two weeks this year. Yet this year could be the worst for home sales in 14 years.

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U.S. Housing Market Still On Life Support; Prices At 2003 Levels

With each passing year, the former Oracle of the Fed, Alan Greenspan, is reminded that there really was a housing bubble and lowering interest rates to record lows just made matters worse.  Nearly four years after the housing market peak in 2007, record low mortgage rates are no match for falling incomes and 9% unemployment.
The Case-Shiller Home Price Index, released on Tuesday, showed that nation wide home prices did not register a significant change in the third quarter of 2011, with the U.S. National Home Price Index up by only 0.1% from its second quarter level. Home prices are down 3.9% across the board and are now back to their first quarter of 2003 levels. The market consensus was for a 3% decline year over year.
From August to September, housing prices have fallen the most in Atlanta, with a 5.9% decline, followed by Tampa Bay and San Francisco, both with a 1.5% drop in housing prices.
Boston, New York, Washington and Los Angeles remain the most expensive cities in the lower 48 states.
"The plunging collapse of prices seen in 2007-2009 seems to be behind us," says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Indices. "Any chance for a sustained recovery will probably need a stronger economy."

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Angels land slugger Hamilton in $125 million deal: report

(Reuters) - Free agent slugger Josh Hamilton has agreed to a five-year, $125 million deal to join the Los Angeles Angels, Major League Baseball's (MLB) website reported on Thursday.
The five-time All-Star, who overcame drug and alcohol addictions to become one of MLB's most feared hitters, helped power the Texas Rangers to consecutive World Series appearances in 2010 and 2011.
The 31-year-old hard-hitting outfielder broke into the major leagues in 2007 with the Cincinnati Reds but spent the next five years with the Rangers and took home American League Most Valuable Player (MVP) honors in 2010.
Hamilton has a career .304 batting average, 553 runs batted in and 161 home runs, including a career-high 43 last season.
He joins an Angels team that already boasts three-time National League MVP Albert Pujols, a 32-year-old slugger who signed with the team last offseason.

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