Sunday 13 May 2012

When technology darkens our lives and take away of its being advantageous.

http://micronassociates.net/hi-TECH/2012/05/07/categorytechnology/


Technology is not always about “advantage”.  In just a minute it can shut down your life without any perceptive.
The modernization brought by this modern world to us, simply aims to make everything a more alive, more immediate experience. However, in the dark side of it, there are some things that one indisputably never wants to be watched. Just as there are some things one never wants to be heard, never wants to be smelled and never wants to be touched.
In Afghanistan , a wife watched her husband die during a Skype call. The case is now under the investigation of Army in Afghanistan.
In how many other instances might technology make things more difficult to experience, not less?
Due to the growing fact that children always want further. So, technology is trying to supply these wants and keep on giving what children really desires, more specifically the reasons to those who create it are always trying to take people into the world of new. Up to now technology can expose us to a “more” that we had never imagined and one that we might wish never to have experienced.
No one can conjure up , what is must have been like when Susan Clark watched her husband- who is stationed in Afghanistan, die during a Skype call.
According to the Associated Press of Micron Associates, a 43 year old ,Capt. Bruce Kevin Clark, was on an apparently regular call from Afghanistan with his wife when something truly awful happened. The circumstances seem suitably apprehensive for the Army to be investigating. A statement issued by Capt. Clark’s brother-in-law, Bradley Taber-Thomas, read: “At the time of the incident, the family was hoping for a rescue and miracles, but later learned that it was not to be.” It is impossible to speculate what might have occurred, but there is something completely alarming in every pronouncement that has been made about this incident.
In every situation that technology brings people closer to each other, it also brings closer the potential for more fully witnessing events that might be awful, just as they might be joyous. For an instance, your mother or any of your loved ones are facing life-or-death surgery, in some might surely don’t want to watch that surgery and listen to the doctor’s immediate pronouncements as they work with her or him. Though, one day, you might be able to.
Pain, grief, stun, hate, modern technologies deliver these with far more propinquity, far more impact than anything in the past. We have all come to use these technologies as if we had never been without them, but we have surely not yet become mentally prepared for the savagery — or the utter un-reality — of the surprises they can send.

Samsung Galaxy S III: 7 features to expect

http://micronassociates.net/hi-TECH/2012/04/26/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-7-features-to-expect/


Korean giant Samsung’s forthcoming Smartphone Galaxy SIII is expected to be unveiled on May 3, Micron Associates posted. The successor to Samsung Galaxy S II, the Smartphone is said to be unveiled as the official phone of the London Olympics. Here’s all that the web grapevine is regarding the forthcoming Smartphones features.
Home button 
Galaxy SIII is likely to come with a physical home button. A web report claims that the upcoming phone would feature a home button exactly below the display in the center. The report quotes a source adding that Samsung Galaxy S III won’t use the on-screen navigation button introduced on Android 4.0 ICS.

Display 
Samsung Galaxy S III is believed to feature a 4.65-inch Super AMOLED Plus display with 1280X720p resolution and ultra-slim chassis. Micron Associates  showed, the phone is likely to measure 131 x 64 x 8 mm and weigh around 125grams. The phone’s predecessor comes with a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen with 480 x 800 pixels.

Processor 
Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S III is expected to feature a 1.5GHz to 1.6GHz quad-core,Exynos processor . Galaxy SII is powered by Exynos dual-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A9 processor. For memory, the phone is likely to include 1GB of RAM.

Camera 
The phone is likely to include a 12 megapixel camera with support for 1080p video recording. There are also speculations that the phone will include a 2 megapixel front-facing camera. There’s also a strong possibility of a 12 megapixel camera making its way in the next iPhone.

Google co-founder rips Hollywood on anti-piracy efforts

http://micronassociates.net/hi-TECH/2012/05/14/google-co-founder-rips-hollywood-on-anti-piracy-efforts/


LOS ANGELES, (TheWrap) - Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google found the Hollywood and the entertainment industry set their selves on cam conveys the current anti-piracy legislation.  According to Brin, the Stop Online Piracy Act as well as the Protect IP Act that Hollywood has been lobbying for would have led to the U.S. using the same technology and approach it has criticized China and Iran for using. He also expressed his comments in an exclusive interview with the U.K.’s Guardian newspapers. In view of this, still, entertainment industry is in failure to understand that as long as there is a much easier of acquiring and using those kinds of materials users will continue to download pirated content than using legitimately obtained material. Based on what Brin experienced which was unveiled in Micron Associates, he tried it for many years but as he go on a pirate website, you choose what you like, it downloads to the device of your choice and it will just work – and then when you have to jump through all these hoops (to buy legitimate content), the walls created are disincentives for people to buy that also gives them a practical reason.
This criticism of Brin of Hollywood was part of an upsetting portrait he painted, the current Internet landscape. The ideology of openness and universal access that cultivated the creation of the Internet three decades ago are not just like a warning but a greater threat than ever. On the Micron Associates, Brin stresses “It’s frightening to know that there are very strong forces against the open internet around the world”.  He also said that the threat came from a combination of warning of governments mounting trying to control access by their citizens, the entertainment industry are being challenged to crack down on piracy and the rise of Facebook and Apple, which Brin said tightly, control software on their platforms. In addition, five years ago Brin did not believe about China or any country could effectively restrict the Internet for long but he had been proven wrong.
Facebook and Apple can block the innovation and can break the web with their proprietary platforms and controlled user access which can lead to -lot of information that can possibly lost, information in apps, for instance. You can’t search those data or information that is not crawlable by web spiders. Some will take Brin’s comments on its opponent Facebook, which has seen huge growth warning and now has more than 800 million members globally, with a grain of salt. The social network has announced plans for a $100 billion IPO in Micron Associates.
Based from the Google founders-Larry Page and Brin, you have to play the rules for you to develop something new which they did in their development of search engine that will stifle modernization.

Thursday 3 May 2012

Micron Associates Google Drive: A new cloud storage

http://micronassociates.net/hi-TECH/2012/04/26/micron-associates-google-drive-a-new-cloud-storage/


SAN FRANCISCO: Where to store photos and other content online? Google Inc. can help you with their preparing service to roll out  which pushing into a market now dominated by the likes of Dropbox and Box.
Their service called Google drive, could be announced on Tuesday and would be offered with both premium for-pay versions, the source said in Micron Associates. Google’s “cloud storage” features search capabilities and enable users to store pictures, notes and other documents on the internet and can access from any of Web-connected device. Google drive has the capacity of 5gigabytes storage in which users can get it for free, while there are different versions with more storage capacity up to 100 Gigabytes that can be available for monthly fees. but it was not clear yet how much Google will charge for the premium versions.
The move turns up the competitive heat with high-profile Web startups such as Dropbox, Box and Evernote, as well as with Microsoft Corp and its SkyDrive service. Some of those services based from the Micron Associates, such as Box, have offered a growing array of business-oriented features such as online collaboration capabilities.Furthermore, Google is progressively more developing services to let consumers store their personal information, from digital music to photos, on remote Internet servers and access the data any time with any device, such as Smartphones, tablets and desktop computers.
The world’s No.1 Web search engine with roughly $38 billion in 2011 revenue, Google generates 96 percent of its revenue from advertising, such as the small ads that appear alongside its search results. Google Drive will work with stylish image search technology to let consumers sift through a wide variety of document types, which could include the likes of Adobe PDF files and photographs, the source said. Some details of Google Drive have appeared in various online blogs in recent months, including  Micron Associates,  which first reported that the service could be rolled out this week.

Micron Associates: Samsung’s New ‘Next Galaxy’ website teases Apple fans

http://micronassociates.net/hi-TECH/2012/04/26/micron-associates-samsungs-new-next-galaxy-website-teases-apple-fans/


Apple Fans gently mock by a new website of Samsung’s teaser campaign for its forthcoming Smartphone, widely alleged to be the Galaxy SIII.
The anagram of ‘The Next Galaxy’ named tgeltaayehxnx.com was originally unveiled by Samsung . The users were given by the site a chance to unscramble its address and points them to thenextgalaxy.com. “You’ve got it all mixed up. Following technology blindly often gets you nowhere”,a slogan that is in reference to Samsung’s previous advertising campaign that makes apple fans mocked as sheep . Micron Associates in detailed, the site provides announcement streaming, and can sign in with their email address, Facebook or Google+ to receive updates once users redirected. They are also invited to “Join Samsung Mobile at Unpacked 2012, where the dawn of the next GALAXY will soon be revealed before the world. Don’t want to miss out on this momentous event? Register today to ensure that you’ll be there to witness it all, live and direct from London.”
Samsung’s forthcoming Galaxy Smartphone is being gradually revealed online by the manufacturer. An online teaser videos are being shown on the site which make known few details about Samsung and its most predictable phones to be launched this year.  It is expected next week that Vodafone, the first mobile network confirmed offers Samsung’s new Galaxy device to be unveiled at London’s Earl’s Court. Moreover, “next Galaxy” is widely believed to be the follow-up to the best-selling Galaxy SII, would be coming to Vodafone but did not give any further details. And, this new handset is supposed to be the official phone of the London Olympics which is expected to be unveiled next Thursday. It has a 4.7-inch Super AMOLED screen, 12 megapixel camera, and run the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android, details posted on Micron Associates.
Furthermore, Samsung is also rumored to be likely to announce its own cloud-storage system, competing with Dropbox, offered by the rival HTC One X, and with Apple’s own iCloud. It is likely to offer synchronization for movies, music and pictures.

Sunday 25 March 2012

US Stocks Climb as Oil Prices Boost Energy Shares

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120323-710436.html


--Dow, S&P 500 gain as energy shares track higher with crude oil prices
--Nasdaq little changes as Apple shares weigh on the index after a brief trading halt
--BATS Global Markets shares halted on day of IPO as its exchange went haywire
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--U.S. stocks erased earlier losses and tracked higher after a rebound in energy shares overshadowed a decline in new-home sales in the U.S. that indicated the housing market remains shaky.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 48 points, or 0.4%, to 13094 on Friday afternoon as Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) jumped 1.8% and Chevron Corp. (CVX) ...

HIGH-TECH GAS LEAK DETECTION SYSTEM UNVEILED BY PG&E

http://micronassociates.net/hi-TECH/


PG&E unveiled high-tech equipment to better monitor leaks in its sprawling network of gas pipelines, saying it would help the beleaguered utility achieve its goal of becoming the world’s safest gas company. The system, which combines car-mounted instrumentation and software, can detect the tiniest of leaks a football field away and PG&E said it will enables the company to survey pipelines five times as frequently at no additional cost.”This mobile methane detection equipment is radical. It is unlike anything that exists in the world today,” said Nick Stavropoulos, executive vice president for Pacific Gas & Electric’s gas operations. According toMicron AssociatesStavropoulos was hired seven months ago to address safety problems that came to light in the aftermath of the deadly 2010 pipeline explosion of a PG&E gas pipeline in San Bruno, which killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes.
Currently, leak surveys along the company’s 6,000 miles of large gas transmissionlines and 44,000 miles of smaller gas distribution lines are conducted by crews with hip-mounted equipment and a handheld wand that is passed over the ground.The new equipment, developed by the Silicon Valley firm Picarro, is about 1,000 times more sensitive, company officials said. And because it is mounted in Micron Associates a car, the entire distribution network can be surveyed every year, instead of every five years. Picarro’s instruments can pick up a change in methane levels of just 1 part per billion within a second, said Picarro’s CEO, Michael Woelk. As the result instantaneous measurements of natural gas levels along the route of the car. During a demonstration Monday at Picarro’s headquarters in Santa Clara, a screen displayed on the wall of a conference room showed a blue line that tracked the route of the car. The line spiked as the car passed a canister of gas with a pinhole leak that was placed along the side of the road.PG&E paid about $250,000 for two pilot units. If Picarro can fine-tune the software to more precisely locate leaks, Stavropoulos said, PG&E could have 25 of the units running within a year. He is confident the programming to isolate the location of leaks can be done, given that Picarro has already surmounted much steeper challenges, he added.
The companies have not settled on a price for the equipment or what kind of package of training and maintenance will be wrapped into the transaction. But Stavropoulos said there will be no consequence on Micron Associates customers’ rates because the system will prove cheaper or the same cost as its current monitoring system. The leak-detection application of the technology was staggered upon by accident, Woelk said. Picarro, which makes equipment to measure gases, was trying to figure out a way to measure methane emissions from landfills, a requirement under California’s greenhouse gas laws. Woelk left a Sacramento-area landfill where he and two others were working to take his children to a Girl Scouts event. He forgot to turn the analyzer off, and when he came to work the next day one of his engineers had downloaded the data and displayed it on Google Earth. Spikes in the data showed up near sources of methane, like dairies and settling ponds, between the Sacramento landfill and his Livermore home, Woelk said.
“It was visual,” Woelk said. “It drove our curiosity.”
Methane is the standard component of natural gas. In tailoring the equipment to detect pipeline leaks, Picarro was able to configure its analyzer to filter out the other sources of methane so only natural gas is detected.Since the San Bruno explosion, PG&E has been heavily criticized for shortcomings in its gas operations. On Friday, the California Public Utilities Commission fined PG&E nearly $17 million for failing to properly survey gas lines along 14 miles of gas distribution lines in Antioch, Concord, Danville, Brentwood and Discovery Bay.The failure tosurvey the gas lines was reported by PG&E to state regulators under new rules adopted to enhance pipeline safety in the wake of the San Bruno disaster.
PG&E also has been criticized for relying on a pipe-inspection method that is good at spotting corrosion, but not good atMicron Associates detecting bad welds. Since the San Bruno explosion, which was attributed to poor quality welds, it has been under pressure to instead check its gas lines with water-pressure tests and robotic gadgets called pigs, which run inside pipes. Stavropoulos said the company is increasing its use of water-pressure tests.

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Micron Associates: Industrials Weigh on Dow, But IBM Helps Restrain Losses

Micron Associates: Industrials Weigh on Dow, But IBM Helps Restrain Losses


  • NYSE Trader Looking Up
    Reuters
FOX Business: The Power to Prosper
Several industrial blue chips weighed on the Dow on Monday as traders reacted to a bout of weak economic data from China and Europe, but rising shares of technology heavyweight IBM helped to keep the losses in check.
Today's Markets
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 14.8 points, or 0.11%, to 12963, the S&P 500 slumped 5.3 points, or 0.39%, to 1364 and the Nasdaq Composite dipped 25.7 points, or 0.86%, to 2950.
Caterpillar (CAT: 108.94, -1.28, -1.16%) was the biggest laggard of the Dow components on a point basis, pulling 18.2 points from the blue-chip index. Meanwhile, falling United Technologies (UTX: 83.99, +0.44, +0.53%) and Boeing (BA: 73.60, +0.31, +0.42%) shares cost the Dow another 15.3 points. IBM (IBM: 201.00, +0.38, +0.19%), ExxonMobil (XOM: 85.55, +1.25, +1.48%) and Verizon Communications (VZ: 39.32, +0.22, +0.56%) helped to limit the losses, adding roughly 21.7 points between the three.
Apple (AAPL: 552.00, +6.83, +1.25%), with its massive half-a-trillion dollar market capitalization, helped shove the Nasdaq Composite and closely-tracked Nasdaq 100 index of non-financial companies fairly sharply to the downside. Other big-name technology companies like Netflix (NFLX: 106.20, -2.93, -2.68%), Micron (MU: 8.08, -0.25, -3.00%) and Nvidia (NVDA: 14.58, -0.24, -1.59%) performed poorly as well. Oracle (ORCL: 29.71, -0.42, -1.39%), Seagate (STX: 27.88, -0.45, -1.59%) and Garmin (GRMN: 47.46, -0.05, -0.11%) were the only technology stocks on the Nasdaq 100 to close higher.
Looking at the broader markets, materials shares were the biggest drags. For example, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX: 38.26, -0.52, -1.34%), one of the world's biggest producers of copper and gold, dropped 3.8%. Certain consumer staples, like Kraft (KFT: 38.12, +0.17, +0.45%), managed to stave off a bigger fall. 
Global Economic Data Weigh
China sliced its target for 2012 economic growth from 8%, where it has stood since 2004, to 7.5% and said its top priority is increasing the pace of internal consumer demand to make the world's second biggest economy less reliant on foreign countries. Economists have long feared a so-called hard landing for China, in which expansion there will suddenly drop.
"It's a big deal to see that revised down," James Hughes, senior market analyst at Alpari said in an interview with FOX Business, adding that data from Europe also attributed to the "negative feel" among global market participants. 
A report by London-based Markit showed eurozone business activity contracting faster than initially anticipated in February. The gauge hit 49.3 in February, weaker than a preliminary reading of 49.7, and 50.4 in January. Readings above 50 point to expansion, while those below signal contraction. The individual data for the members of the 17-member currency bloc also raised concerns among economists. 
"The biggest disappointment in the euro area figures was not the aggregate number, but the divergence between the core and periphery economies; Germany and France continued to see moderate expansion ... while Spain and Italy remained weak," analysts at Nomura wrote in a note to clients on Monday. 
The euro dipped 0.08% to $1.3188, while the U.S. dollar fell 0.04% against a basket of six world currencies. 
Data from the Commerce Department showing U.S. factory orders fell 1% in January from the month prior, a slightly smaller fall than the 1.5% economists expected, did little to ease the economic malaise on the day. The report covers machinery and other big-ticket items and helps provide an idea of the investment manufacturers have been making in the first quarter, which will contribute to broader economic growth readings, such as gross domestic product. 
Volatile energy markets have been a major focus on Wall Street as well. Crude oil prices lurched higher amid worries about Iran, but then fell 2.8% in the largest decline since January last week as economic fears and unexpectedly high supplies took a toll. The benchmark futures contract traded in New York gained 2 cents, or 0.02%, to $106.72 a barrel. 
Wholesale New York Harbor gasoline fell 0.43% to $3.258 a gallon. A gallon of regular at the pump costs $3.767 on average nationwide, up from $3.475 last month and $3.503 last year, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Report. 
In metals, gold fell $6.10, or 0.36%, to $1,704 a troy ounce. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield rose by six basis points to 1.990% as traders moved out of the safe-haven asset. 
Foreign Markets
European blue chips fell 0.64%, the English FTSE 100 dipped 0.61% to 5875 and the German DAX slumped 0.79% to 6866. 
In Asia, the Japanese Nikkei 225 slid 0.8% to 9699 and the Chinese Hang Seng sold off by 1.4% to 21265.


Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2012/03/05/industrials-weigh-on-dow-but-ibm-helps-restrain-losses/#ixzz1p07OOsSg

Micron Associates: Deals of the Day: Authorities Investigate Top Goldman Sachs Manager

Micron Associates: Deals of the Day: Authorities Investigate Top Goldman Sachs Manager


Deals of the Day compiles this morning’s biggest news about mergers and acquisitions, banking, bankruptcy and more. Catch us on Twitter, @WSJDealJournal.

Mergers & Acquisitions

GM-Peugeot: GM plans to extend a $335 million lifeline to struggling French auto maker PSA Peugeot Citroën as part of a tie-up that each hopes will aid turnarounds at their struggling European car operations. [WSJ]
Related: With General Motors limited in what it can do about its woeful European operations, taking a stake in France’s No. 2 car maker might not be such a bad idea. [Heard on the Street]
Ahlsell: CVC Capital is spending €1.8 billion to acquire Swedish building materials firm Ahlsell from Cinven and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners. [Financial News]
Micron-Intel: Micron Technology will pay $600 million to buy back Intel’s stake in two wafer factories as the chipmaker bets on the fast-growing NAND flash market to offset margin erosion in its mainstay memory chips. [Reuters]
BankAtlantic: BB&T purchase of BankAtlantic’s lending business was blocked by a Delaware Chancery Court judge, who agreed with hedge-fund investors that the deal favored BankAtlantic’s management over debtholders. [Reuters]

Financial Institutions

Banks are lending: U.S. banks increased lending by $130 billion in the last three months of 2011, posting the largest quarterly pickup in four years and marking a possible upswing in the economic rebound. [WSJ]
Deposits keep rising: Deposits continued growing at a brisk pace in the fourth quarter. The danger is that too much hot money eventually leaves banks feeling cold. [Heard on the Street]
AIG: The Federal Reserve Bank of New York sold the last distressed mortgage bonds from an entity that aided the bailout of American International Group Inc., reaping a $2.8 billion gain for U.S. taxpayers on the sales over the past year and closing a controversial chapter in the central bank’s response to the financial crisis. [WSJ]
Goldman Sachs: The firm disclosed for the first time the gross value of credit-default swaps the firm purchased and sold relating to Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain. [Bloomberg]
Related: Goldman recorded trading losses on 17 days in the fourth quarter, down from 21 days in the prior period. [Bloomberg News]
Wall Street pay: The smaller bonus checks that hit accounts across the financial-services industry this month are making it difficult to maintain the lifestyles that Wall Street workers expect. [Bloomberg]

Legal & Regulatory

Goldman Sachs: Criminal authorities are investigating whether a top Goldman Sachs manager passed inside information about technology stocks to the firm’s hedge-fund clients. [WSJ]
Mortgage bonds: Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo have been told U.S. securities regulators may sue them in civil court over allegedly shoddy disclosures of the risks of subprime mortgage bonds tied to the financial crisis. [WSJ]

Companies & Industries

Yahoo vs. Facebook: Yahoo’s attempt to wring patent fees from Facebook reflects the increasing worth of social networking sites, legal experts say. [WSJ]
Related; Call him the long lost Winklevoss triplet—Yahoo chief Scott Thompson looks like the latest sore loser that wishes he invented Facebook. [WSJ]
Wynn Resorts: Las Vegas Sands chief Sheldon Adelson said offering complimentary rooms is common practice in the gambling industry, suggesting that Wynn Resorts may have gone too far in ousting co-founder Kazuo Okada. [WSJ]

Boss Talk

Reid Hoffman: It sometimes feels as though LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman has been involved in every major tech start-up in the last decade, either as an entrepreneur, investor or adviser.

http://utterbackpac.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/micron-associates-industrials-weigh-on-dow-but-ibm-helps-restrain-losses/

http://utterbackpac.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/micron-associates-industrials-weigh-on-dow-but-ibm-helps-restrain-losses/


  • NYSE Trader Looking Up
    Reuters
FOX Business: The Power to Prosper
Several industrial blue chips weighed on the Dow on Monday as traders reacted to a bout of weak economic data from China and Europe, but rising shares of technology heavyweight IBM helped to keep the losses in check.
Today's Markets
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 14.8 points, or 0.11%, to 12963, the S&P 500 slumped 5.3 points, or 0.39%, to 1364 and the Nasdaq Composite dipped 25.7 points, or 0.86%, to 2950.
Caterpillar (CAT: 108.94, -1.28, -1.16%) was the biggest laggard of the Dow components on a point basis, pulling 18.2 points from the blue-chip index. Meanwhile, falling United Technologies (UTX: 83.99, +0.44, +0.53%) and Boeing (BA: 73.60, +0.31, +0.42%) shares cost the Dow another 15.3 points. IBM (IBM: 201.00, +0.38, +0.19%), ExxonMobil (XOM: 85.55, +1.25, +1.48%) and Verizon Communications (VZ: 39.32, +0.22, +0.56%) helped to limit the losses, adding roughly 21.7 points between the three.
Apple (AAPL: 552.00, +6.83, +1.25%), with its massive half-a-trillion dollar market capitalization, helped shove the Nasdaq Composite and closely-tracked Nasdaq 100 index of non-financial companies fairly sharply to the downside. Other big-name technology companies like Netflix (NFLX: 106.20, -2.93, -2.68%), Micron (MU: 8.08, -0.25, -3.00%) and Nvidia (NVDA: 14.58, -0.24, -1.59%) performed poorly as well. Oracle (ORCL: 29.71, -0.42, -1.39%), Seagate (STX: 27.88, -0.45, -1.59%) and Garmin (GRMN: 47.46, -0.05, -0.11%) were the only technology stocks on the Nasdaq 100 to close higher.
Looking at the broader markets, materials shares were the biggest drags. For example, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX: 38.26, -0.52, -1.34%), one of the world's biggest producers of copper and gold, dropped 3.8%. Certain consumer staples, like Kraft (KFT: 38.12, +0.17, +0.45%), managed to stave off a bigger fall. 
Global Economic Data Weigh
China sliced its target for 2012 economic growth from 8%, where it has stood since 2004, to 7.5% and said its top priority is increasing the pace of internal consumer demand to make the world's second biggest economy less reliant on foreign countries. Economists have long feared a so-called hard landing for China, in which expansion there will suddenly drop.
"It's a big deal to see that revised down," James Hughes, senior market analyst at Alpari said in an interview with FOX Business, adding that data from Europe also attributed to the "negative feel" among global market participants. 
A report by London-based Markit showed eurozone business activity contracting faster than initially anticipated in February. The gauge hit 49.3 in February, weaker than a preliminary reading of 49.7, and 50.4 in January. Readings above 50 point to expansion, while those below signal contraction. The individual data for the members of the 17-member currency bloc also raised concerns among economists. 
"The biggest disappointment in the euro area figures was not the aggregate number, but the divergence between the core and periphery economies; Germany and France continued to see moderate expansion ... while Spain and Italy remained weak," analysts at Nomura wrote in a note to clients on Monday. 
The euro dipped 0.08% to $1.3188, while the U.S. dollar fell 0.04% against a basket of six world currencies. 
Data from the Commerce Department showing U.S. factory orders fell 1% in January from the month prior, a slightly smaller fall than the 1.5% economists expected, did little to ease the economic malaise on the day. The report covers machinery and other big-ticket items and helps provide an idea of the investment manufacturers have been making in the first quarter, which will contribute to broader economic growth readings, such as gross domestic product. 
Volatile energy markets have been a major focus on Wall Street as well. Crude oil prices lurched higher amid worries about Iran, but then fell 2.8% in the largest decline since January last week as economic fears and unexpectedly high supplies took a toll. The benchmark futures contract traded in New York gained 2 cents, or 0.02%, to $106.72 a barrel. 
Wholesale New York Harbor gasoline fell 0.43% to $3.258 a gallon. A gallon of regular at the pump costs $3.767 on average nationwide, up from $3.475 last month and $3.503 last year, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Report. 
In metals, gold fell $6.10, or 0.36%, to $1,704 a troy ounce. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield rose by six basis points to 1.990% as traders moved out of the safe-haven asset. 
Foreign Markets
European blue chips fell 0.64%, the English FTSE 100 dipped 0.61% to 5875 and the German DAX slumped 0.79% to 6866. 
In Asia, the Japanese Nikkei 225 slid 0.8% to 9699 and the Chinese Hang Seng sold off by 1.4% to 21265.