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8A Daily News – Friday, July 27, 2012 the buy signal that markets were waiting for. NEW YORK (AP) — It was Stocks soar after ECB vows to protect the euro Wall Street When European Central Bank president Mario Draghi vowed to ''do whatever it takes'' to keep the continent's monetary union intact, stocks were off to races in the U.S. and Europe. The Dow Jones industrial aver- age on Thursday jumped 212 points, or 1.7 percent, to 12,888 following big gains in European markets. Benchmark stock indexes in Spain and Italy surged 6 percent and 4 percent in France. Draghi's comments at an investor conference at the Olympics raised hopes that Europe's central bank might inter- vene to bring down the cripplingly high borrowing costs for strug- gling European countries like Spain and Italy. was up to European governments to restore confidence in the curren- cy shared by 17 nations there, Draghi pledged that ''the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro.'' That commitment gave a big boost to global markets. ''The No. 1 problem in the world now is Europe's finances,'' John Fox, director of research at Fenimore Asset Management, said. ''When the head of the ECB comes out and says he's willing to do anything, that's code for 'We are going to After insisting for months that it agree to resolve this issue.' " In other signs that investors were becoming more confident that Europe's financial crisis would not spin out of control, borrowing costs for Spain and Italy fell sharply, the euro surged a penny to $1.23 against the dollar and the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.43 percent from 1.40 per- cent late Wednesday. Investors tend to sell low-risk assets like Treasurys when they're less fearful about global markets and the econ- omy. As earnings reports this week from Caterpillar and Ford have shown, Europe's troubles can have a big impact on the results of major U.S. corporations. ''Close to 20 percent of the S&P 500 companies' revenues comes from Europe,'' said Lawrence Creatura, portfolio man- ager at Federated Investors. ''We're in a global, interconnected economy and Europe's troubles are our own today.'' Soda companies racing for a new sweet spot Poor's 500 index rose for the first time in five days. It was up 22.13 points, or 1.7 percent, to 1,360.02 The gains in the U.S. stock market were broad. All 10 of the industry groups in the S&P 500 index rose, led by telecommunications com- panies. The broader the Standard & government plunged following Draghi's comments as investors anticipated that the European Cen- tral Bank might step up its pur- chases of Spanish government bonds. Borrowing costs for Spain's The yield on Spain's bench- mark 10-year bond dropped almost half a percentage point, a huge move, to 6.89 percent. That rate surged as high as 7.54 percent this week as investors dumped the country's bonds and lost confi- dence in Spain's ability to manage its debts. Technology companies contin- ued to report disappointing earn- ings following industry leader Coke and Pepsi are chasing after the sweet spot: a soda with no calories, no artifi- cial sweeteners and no funny aftertaste. The world's top soft drink companies hope that's the elusive trifecta that will silence health concerns about soda and reverse the decline in consumption of carbonated drinks. But such a formula could be years away. NEW YORK (AP) — That's because the ingre- dient that makes soda taste good is also what packs on the pounds: high-fructose corn syrup. Artificial sweet- eners like aspartame that are used in diet drinks don't have any calories but are seen as processed and fake. Natural sweeteners that come from plants present the most promising alterna- tive, but companies haven't Sierra Sound Car Audio 35th $ 226 So. Main St., Red Bluff 527-3735 All CD's 13.99 Anniversary Sale or less yet figured out how to mask their metallic aftertaste. Despite the complexi- ties, soft drink makers push on in their search. ''I can't say when it will be here, but it's in the rea- sonable future,'' said Al Carey, who heads the bever- age unit for the Americas at PepsiCo Inc., the world's No. 2 soda maker. There's good reason that soft drink makers are so eager to tweak their formu- las. Once a beloved Ameri- can treat, sodas are now being blamed for the nation's bulging waistlines — two-thirds of the coun- try's adults are overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That, cou- pled with the growing vari- ety of flavored waters and sports drinks, has sent per capita soda consumption down 17 percent to about 1.3 cans a day since its peak in 1998, according to data from Beverage Digest, an industry tracker. In New York City, a ban on the sale of sugary drinks bigger than 16 ounces in restaurants, theaters and sta- diums could take effect as early as March. The mayor of Cambridge, Mass., pro- posed a similar ban last month. And in Richmond, Calif., voters will decide in November whether to pass the nation's first penny-per- ounce tax on soda and other sugary drinks such as fruit juices and teas. All the negative publicity has some once-faithful soda drinkers cutting back. Krista Koster, a 29-year-old who lives in Washington D.C., used to down about two cans of soda a day. Now she's trying to kick the habit and be more con- scious about what she drinks. ''I've just been hearing how bad soda is,'' Koster, who works in public relations. ''You start consid- ering a lot of the ingredi- ents, whether it's fake sugar or the real sugar.'' said High-fructose corn syrup, the cheap sweetener that's used in most sodas, has the same nutritional value and taste of sugar. A can of regular soda typical- ly has about 40 grams of high-fructose corn syrup and 140 calories. By com- parison, the same amount of apple juice has about 38 grams of sugar and 165 calories, but companies can tout the vitamins and other nutrients juice provides. Aspartame, the artificial sweetener commonly used in drinks such as Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi, doesn't have any calories. But some drinkers worry about the fact that the sweeteners are not natural. Public percep- tion has been colored by past studies that have sug- gested it caused cancer and brain tumors in rats even though The American Can- cer Society says there's no evidence showing it has any link with an increased risk for cancer in adults. The concerns have led soft drink companies to search for natural, zero- calorie sweeteners, includ- ing stevia, which is derived from a South American shrub. Natural sweeteners have neither the calories of sugar nor the negative asso- ciations of artificial sweet- eners. 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Market St. 9am – 8pm (closed Saturdays) 9am – 6:30pm daily amazingfindshome.com own notes that need to be mixed with other flavors,'' said Mehmood Khan, chief science officer for PepsiCo. ''It's a bit like an orchestra playing music, as opposed to one instrument.'' So far, stevia is the natur- al sweetener that has gotten the most attention and is already used in Coca-Cola and PepsiCo products, including orange juice and bottled teas. But it's proving more difficult to hide the aftertaste in colas. Soft drink makers are testing different extracts from the stevia plant that they hope will be easier to blend. They're also scour- ing the world for other natu- rally occurring sweeteners, such as one called mogro- side that is extracted from monk fruit and a derivative of a berry called miracle fruit. Amazing Finds New & Consigned Furniture & More In other trading, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 39.01 points, or 1.4 percent, to 2,893.25, despite more disappointing news from technology companies including the online game maker Zynga. Several U.S. companies were also rising sharply after reporting stronger earnings. Sprint Nextel jumped 68 cents, or 20 percent, to $4.05. The country's third-largest wireless carrier was successful in convincing smartphone sub- scribers to pay up for ''unlimited data'' service, and its service rev- enue zoomed higher, beating ana- lysts' estimates. In Europe, Draghi's comments came after days of uncertainty in Europe and rising concern over Spain's recession and the country's banks, which are reeling following the implosion of a real estate bub- ble. As borrowing costs for both Spain and Italy rose in the past week, investors feared that both countries might need to be res- cued, like Greece, Portugal and Ireland had been in the last two years. Apple's rare earnings disappoint- ment earlier this week. Zynga, which produces popular social network games ''CityVille'' and ''FarmVille'' posted poor quarterly results and cut its out- look, prompting a number of ana- lyst downgrades. Its stock fell $1.90, or 37.5 percent, to $3.17. Zynga's disastrous results were also a bad omen for Facebook, which got about 12 percent of its 2011 revenue from Zynga. Face- book plunged 10 percent in after- hours trading after the company reported a loss of $157 million for its second quarter. The stock was down $2.63 at $24.19. big moves: Among other stocks making — PulteGroup jumped $1.84, or 18 percent, to $11.86 after the homebuilder posted a quarterly profit, beating Wall Street's fore- casts thanks to higher house prices and sales. — United Continental slumped $1.21, or 6 percent, $19.20 after the combined airline's second- quarter net income dropped 37 percent as it continued to wrestle with merger-related issues. — Whole Foods Market jumped $9.57, or 11 percent, to $94.10 after the natural and organ- ic foods store chain lifted its profit outlook for the year. Its net income jumped 32 percent in the latest quarter as shoppers spent more.